The Keepers of the House by Shirley Ann Grau

For the last couple of months I have been reading current contenders for the 2014 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, plus several past winners. This novel, which won in 1965, is one that I had not read, or in fact even heard of before. Frankly, I am surprised it was chosen, as I would not have thought it to be of that quality. Perhaps it won because it concerns race relations and a woman's liberation from male dominance, two "hot topics" at that time.

The setting is the Deep South and the plot unfolds in a very Southern style, meandering back and forth to tell the story of one prominent family. The central character, Abigail, moves serenely from her role of pampered daughter and granddaughter to her role of dutiful wife, secure in her world, until a family scandal forces her to confront the suppression, hypocrisy, and incipient violence of her Southern heritage.

It's an interesting story, well worth reading, told by an author who is obviously a Southerner herself. My objections, then? The language doesn't hold up to the standard set by the classics of Southern writing; the pace of most of the book is slow and a bit boring at times, with much extraneous detail; the climax of the book is over-the-top melodramatic, with actions which do not seem realistic, even for the time and the place; finally, the whole plot is somewhat predictable, it seems to me.

Judged against novels as a whole, I would consider this one above average, but judged against what one expects of a Pulitzer winner, I would consider it weak. However, as I read more winners and think about the now-classic books which were passed over, I'm beginning to think that maybe the Pulitzer is not all its cracked up to be.