By Love Possessed By James Gould Cozzens

At the close of 2008, we decided to skip the December meeting and try something a little different to start the new year with. It was back to the 50's for us. How did the books from a half century ago stack up to the bestsellers of today? We set out to discover the answer.


We chose a bestseller from 1957 that was made into a movie in 1961. It was both critically acclaimed and a commercial success, knocking (the novel) Peyton Place out of the number one spot. The book won the William Dean Howells Medal of the American Academy of Arts and Letters in 1960 for 'the most prestigious work of fiction in the last five years'.

It wasn't all smooth sailing for the author, James Gould Cozzens, and his bestseller. He was panned by a critic, Dwight Macdonald, who called the book 'the most alarming literary news of the year'. So, the 570 page novel became our choice. How could we resist reading the most alarming literary news of the year?

We ended up with mixed feelings on the book. I think all of us agreed that 'they don't make them like that anymore'. For some of us, that was too bad. Others found that a good thing.

This 1957 best seller tells the story of an attorney and the people around him. It covers a forty-nine hour period in small-town America.


Menu included:

Watermelon bowl, baked beans, chicken

and cupcakes.

"Poetic prose at it's best." Polly

"Mind boggling, no Nora Roberts." Judy