...And the Ladies of the Club

Rarely have I ever been truly moved by a novel, especially to the point of tears. “…And Ladies of the Club” was the exception to the rule, so moving were some of the scenes. Set in the years following the Civil War and continuing until the election of FDR, the story follows the lives of two young women and the various characters in their small Ohio town. Santmyer is a master at making the various characters relatable, with no one character a hundred percent perfect or even likeable. That though is why the novel is so great, for the women in the Waynesboro Literary Club are a lot like the women that may be members of an organization that you belong to. “…And Ladies of the Club” is definitely worth the effort despite the length.

2026 "...And Ladies of the Club" by Helen Hooven Santmyer (read 19 Oct 1986) This is an extraordinary experience in reading. This book was first published by he Ohio State University Press in 1982, but was republished in 1984 by G.P.Putnam's Sons, when it made quite a splash. There is much about it that one can take exception to: it is a kind of a soap opera, its characters are all rich Republicans, its characters are racist, anti-Catholic; and so on. But I found myself utterly aught up in the rather rickety framework: In 1868 a women's literary club is organized in Waynesboro, Ohio, and this tells about the women who are in it, and their lives, until the death of the last surviving charter member in December of 1932. I found I was show more often immensely moved by the events recounted. The author has a facility for death scenes that is really very deft and emotional. I found the book--all 1176 pages of it--hard to stop reading in. It is a highlight of my reading life--I remember it as more catching than The Forsyth Saga (read by me in July of 1951), which is the type of story its author was striving to imitate, but told in an Ohio smallish town setting. A character near the end mentions The Forsyth Saga, Remembrance of Things Past, and Jean Christophe. But my appreciation for the past is much more poignant now than ir was when I read The Forsyth Saga--in those so youthful days. This has been an excellent reading experience. show less

While it could be said with perfect truth that And Ladies of the Club exposes the gritty truths--adultery, unhappiness, poverty--a certain class of educated, relatively well off and proud women hide beneath a veneer of gentility and custom, it is reductive to see this multidimensional novel to the "dark underbelly of perfect lives" mode. More gentle and warm than Kate Chopin and tougher than Louisa Alcott, Hooven Santmyer infuses her tightly structured work with wry humour, pathos, musings on the comfort of faith amid feuding Protestant sects, overviews of politics and the downfall of heroes. Scenes of sorrow follow scenes of domestic harmony and bliss; the helplessness of doctors before diseases, especially in children, that are cured show more and prevented easily today is particularly poignant. There is the occasional Gothic touch--the wandering of a forcibly retired old lady teacher in search of morphine and her grisly end are a stark contrast to the polite and subtle social gatherings of the club. show less

I love big books, and this is a very big book that will eventually end up on my list to reread. I loved following the main characters throughout their adult lives, as well as meeting the other characters whose paths joined theirs for a few years or for many. I especially admired the enduring bond of the ladies of the club, even those with whom they had nothing in common but club membership. It also struck me, in our modern world of random internet searches and rabbit holes, how each lady was expected to put effort into reading and preparing her paper for the club each year.

That said--the library copy I read had enough typos and other errors to make my eyes cross at times. I'm hoping those were fixed in later editions. :)

There was just something about this book that captured me completely. I love the structure of the book--I think it's brilliant. At the beginning of each chapter is the year and the names of the women in the Waynesboro Women's club for that year. As the years pass, daughters take their mothers' places, not only in the club roster but also within the community. Maybe one reason I enjoyed this book so much was because I read it the year I moved from the west to the midwest. I lived with these characters in the book for weeks while I read it; I was saddened when they died and also when I finished the book. Maybe this is one of those books where the whole is greater than the sum of the parts. I've read the book twice now, all 1175 pages of show more it; I'm quite sure I'll read it again.

A reviewer here at LT reminded me of another aspect of the book I enjoyed--the politics that was going on around these women and the way it affected their lives. What I remember was that Santmyer was very clever about not taking sides herself as an author, but instead letting her characters take sides on the political issues of the day. Another reviewer said the characters were "all rich Republicans," but that's now how I remember it. show less

Maybe because I was born and bred in Ohio, I love this book and count it one of my two favorite novels. The fact that it took the author 50 years to write boggles the mind. I was drawn into it from page one and couldn't put it down. The characters are so well drawn that they became good friends to me and I feel as if I lived with them. The historical information included made the book totally real and engrossing. It is not just a typical romance novel, but an epic of people's lives and how they are lived across a span of years.

"...And Ladies of the Club" is one of my favorite books. Yes, it is long; my current edition has 1176 pages. (I wore out the first paperback I had.) But it does what historical fiction is supposed to do, I think, which is to help you feel what it was like to live in the past. Santmyer writes about the years between the end of the Civil War and the early years of the Depression. She manages to cover small town (midwestern) manners and mores, fashion, politics, child rearing, parties, funeral practices, medicine, education, prejudices, and just about anything else you can think of, all the while telling the story of the various interconnected families who live in her fictional Waynesboro, Ohio.