The Chokecherry Tree

by Frederick Manfred

Book Overview

During the Great Depression, many young men looking for success found themselves lucky to just survive. The Chokecherry Tree, a realistic novel of the Depression set in southern Minnesota, recounts... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0826303781
• ISBN13: 9780826303783
• Release Date: January 1975
• Publisher: University of New Mexico Press
• Length: 266 Pages
• Weight: 0.70 lbs.

Customer Reviews

One of my favourite novels

I grew up in the rural midwest in the 60's, in an old fashioned family, and this novel simply speaks to me. I've met these people. Superficially simple, the book makes you curious about the gravestones he touches, the color of the walls of the rooms he sleeps in, the pattern on the dress of the waitress, the tone of the horn of the truck he rides in. I makes me brave and achy and longing for more, all at the same time.

Growing up in the midwest during the depression

Growing up is the theme of this book byFeike Feikema, who is also Frederick Manfred, and Feikes Feikema. He also wrote many Western tales that were wildly popular at the time in Germany. When my dad saw me reading this book thirty years ago, he said, "If you want to know what it was like when I grew up, keep reading." While the book is set in South Central, MN, my father grew up 10 miles away from Feikes hometown. With his testimony and having visited both Hull (my father) and Doon (Feikes) Iowa, and grown up in small midwestern towns, I can say the book is true to the attitudes and lifestyles of small towns, particularly of Dutch heritage. The book describes Elof's reconciling to himself and his father, after he has come home from college. Delbert Wylder in the introduction to my edition (Zia 1975) says that the people in this novel are simple in their wants, which is true only if you ignore the depression and concentrate on the material wants. The new washer and range that Gert wants would be the equivalent of a great deal more in today's rich society. The internal wants and complexities while modified by the time and place are quite as complex as any modern desires.

Realistic to a fault

Set in Manfred's Siouxland of western Iowa during the Depression, Elof Lofblom comes home to Chokecherry Corner to help his father run his store. His father is mean and abusive; his mother is dead, probably from overwork and abuse. Elof rebels against small-town life, chases some girls and sows some wild oats (though he doesn't neglect his duty at the store), and then marries Gert and settles down, his fate sealed. Manfred's style, as in all his books, is crude and lowbrow on purpose, and will not be to everyone's taste (I'm not very fond of it myself). The novel is a realistc portrait of rural America during the 1930's; I thought it a better work than Manfred's THE GOLDEN BOWL.