Title: Realistic to a fault
Review: Set in Manfred's Siouxland of western Iowa during the Depression, Elof Lofblom comes home to Chokecherry Corner to help his father run his store. His father is mean and abusive; his mother is dead, probably from overwork and abuse. Elof rebels against small-town life, chases some girls and sows some wild oats (though he doesn't neglect his duty at the store), and then marries Gert and settles down, his fate sealed. Manfred's style, as in all his books, is crude and lowbrow on purpose, and will not be to everyone's taste (I'm not very fond of it myself). The novel is a realistc portrait of rural America during the 1930's; I thought it a better work than Manfred's THE GOLDEN BOWL.
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