Product Description
Newton Booth Tarkington (1869-1946) was an American novelist and dramatist best known for his Pulitzer Prize-winning novels The Magnificent Ambersons and Alice Adams. Booth Tarkington was born in Indianapolis. He first attended Purdue University but graduated from Princeton University in 1893. While at Princeton he was the editor of the Nassau Literary Magazine and formed the Princeton Triangle Club. He was also voted the most popular man in his class. He was one of… More >>
Posted in 
Tags: 
A prolix novel about a small town in Indiana called Plattsville. A stranger from out of town arrives and buys the failing (and laughable ) newspaper and turns it into something worth reading. In the process, the strange, Harkless, expels political scoundrels and angers the “white-caps” (ala, KKK ) in the suburb outside of town.
This is also a characteristic and somewhat predictable love story that Tarkington delivers so easily, with a bit of a surprise ending for the reader. The book is wordy and contains mellifluous descriptions that drone on. However, despite it being slow, it picks up about 50% of the way through and delivers a solid story.
Rating: 3 / 5
This is Booth Tarkington’s first novel, which set the stage for many of his future novels set in Indiana involving strong, ambitious characters. John Harkless comes to the small Hoosier town of Plattville to edit the failed weekly newspaper he’s bought. Finding much to be desired about the dealings within his adopted town, especially the near terrorizing of the place by a band of thugs known as the “White Caps,” he wages was against them in his newspaper. They attack him physically and when Harless disappears, everyone assumes he’s been killed. Helen, a woman he’s come to love, takes over the newspaper, which grows in strength and popularity. Harkless, of course, was not murdered, only recovering from his wounds, and when he returns he runs for Congress and purges his town of it’s evil forces.
Tarkington walks a fine line between realism (the intrigue with the White Caps) and romanticism (the love interest between Harkless and Helen), but his vivid writing style is what impresses most. Questionable is Tarkington’s portrayal of Plattville’s citizens as backwoods hicks, though he always defended the accuracy of his depictions. The book was a huge success when first published.
Rating: 4 / 5
This was the first novel of a great master of American literature – now, unfortunately, practically forgotten – Booth Tarkington.
While nearly all of his books that I’ve read have been this good, none has been better. It captures to perfection (I think
country life of the later 1800s, and politics as it fit into it. The descriptions are beatiful but not overdone, and the plot is gripping.
Highly recommended.
Rating: 5 / 5
I had moderately high expectations for this novel and it did deliver.
Considering the time it was written (1899) “The Gentleman From Indiana” is filled with forward thinking — diversity, condemnation of prejudice, equal rights for women. As a native Hoosier, Tarkington is clearly projecting himself through the main character, offering insight into his own passage into middle age (at the ripe old age of 30!) and uneasiness facing mortality. More subtle and slower-paced than some of his more well-know works, such as “The Magnificent Ambersons,” it’s definitely worth forging through. Tarkington’s eloquence shines.
Rating: 4 / 5