Sallie Dunn's Reviews > The Professor's House

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When I think of Willa Cather I think of My Antonia and Death Comes for the Archbishop, both books that I loved. I think this book is not nearly as well-known although Wikipedia says it was a commercial success when published in 1925.

The protagonist in this novel is Godfrey St. Peter, a professor at a small university in the town of Hamilton with a view of Lake Michigan. The book is structured somewhat unusually. Part one is titled “Family,” part two is “Tom Outland’s Story,” and part three is “The Professor.”

In the first section, St. Peter reflects on his marriage, his daughters and, largely, the past, when a young man named Tom Outland came into his professional and family life. Tom Outland was a brilliant student who had a very unconventional upbringing whom the reader comes to know in part two. In the last part St. Peter reflects on the here and now and his current dissatisfaction with his family, his wife and his circumstances.

Without giving the entire plot away suffice it to say I found this book to be much deeper psychologically than Cather’s earlier works although her lyrical description of places is as strong as in her earlier works.

The ATY Goodreads challenge
Prompt #26 - Two books with the same word in title. (The other book will be The Green House by Mario Vargas Llosa)