Kathleen Norris (July 16, 1880 - January 18, 1966)

[reviews_and_ramblings]

Kathleen Thompson Norris (July 16, 1880, San Francisco, California – January 18, 1966, Palo Alto, California) was an American novelist, wife of fellow writer Charles G. Norris (Salt), whom she wed in 1909, and sister-in-law of the late social novelist Frank Norris (McTeague). She was educated in a special course at the University of California and wrote many popular romance novels that some considered sentimental and honest in their prose. Norris was the highest-paid female writer of her time, and many of her novels are held in high regard today. Many of her novels were set in California, particularly the San Francisco area. They feature detailed descriptions of the upper-class lifestyle. After 1910 she contributed to Atlantic, American Magazine, McClure's, Everybody's, Ladies' Home Journal, and Woman's Home Companion.

A feminist and pacifist who in nearly half a century turned out 81 relentlessly wholesome books (10,000,000 copies sold), plus reportage and innumerable short stories for women's magazines.

She died following a stroke in San Francisco. "I write," she once said, "for people with simple needs, like myself," and her books played endless variations on a single theme: "Get a girl in all kinds of trouble and then get her out."

First Book - Lost Sunrise (1909): Lost Sunrise

Last Book - Through a Glass Darkly (1957): Through a Glass Darkly

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kathleen_Norris

Comments

[lee-rowan.livejournal.com]

That's a familiar name! My wife has been collecting Norris' books for ages, in their hardbound editions. I've skimmed a few, and... "relentlessly wholesome" is a perfect description. Excellent writing, good plotting, but the upper-class West Coast sensibility isn't really my thing. They're written for the generation where a wife wasn't expected to have any aspirations beyond Wife and Mother.

[elisa-rolle.livejournal.com]

Well, yes, she was a product of her time, she was young at the beginning of the XX century. Probably a successful marriage and a beautiful home was the maximum reachable and desirable goal. Elisa

[lee-rowan.livejournal.com]

Yes. As time-capsules, they're interesting--many of the virtuous heroines are rewarded one way or another for resigning themselves to miserable husbands. I had to stop reading one because I kept wanting to tell the girl, "He's a skunk--divorce him, already!" And of course she didn't.

Were any of them made into films? They'd really fit the ladies' matinee style.

[elisa-rolle.livejournal.com]

Yes, many of them, it was pretty common at the time:

Navy Wife (1935) (novel "Beauty's Daughter") ... aka Beauty's Daughter
Change of Heart (1934) (novel "Manhattan Love Song")
Walls of Gold (1933) (novel)
Second Hand Wife (1933) (novel) ... aka The Illegal Divorce (UK)
Passion Flower (1930) (novel)
My Best Girl (1927) (story)
The Callahans and the Murphys (1927) (book "The Callahans and the Murphys")
Mother (1927) (novel)
Josselyn's Wife (1926) (novel)
Rose of the World (1925) (novel)
Christine of the Hungry Heart (1924) (story)
Lucretia Lombard (1923) (novel "Flaming Passion") ... aka Flaming Passion
Poor, Dear Margaret Kirby (1921) (story)
Harriet and the Piper (1920) (novel) ... aka Paying the Piper (UK)
The Luck of Geraldine Laird (1920) (novel)
Josselyn's Wife (1919) (novel "Josselyn's Wife")
The Heart of Rachael (1918) (novel)

BTW in Italy divorce was legal only in the '70 of last century, so a divorce was not the solution. I don't know when it became legal in USA. Elisa