At the Dollar Bookstore in my neighborhood, I'd walk by a haphazardly labeled "Biography" shelf and see Old Jules looking out at me. The piercing eyes would beckon, and I'd find myself thumbing through the opening pages, trying to catch a semblance of the contents.
Eventually I bought it.
Mari Sandoz is the daughter of a Swiss immigrant, a brutal bastard of a man who, having moved from Switzerland to the hardscrabble existence the panhandle of Nebraska offers, did what he could to belittle the ambitions of his daughter. This was Old Jules Sandoz. On his deathbed, in a remarkable twist, Jules asked his daughter to tell his story.
The manuscript won a non-fiction prize from the Atlantic Press in 1935. It was published soon thereafter, after a fight between Mari and the publishers. They wanted her to abandon the Western Frontier idiom she wrote it in in favor of the more accepted East Coast idiom.
This is a late edition, maybe eleventh, but the story of an immigrant carving a life out of unforgiving land for himself and his family is as fresh as you'd like it to be. Watch Old Jules befriend the local Indians. Watch as he presides over a makeshift court and a man is hanged.
Mari Sandoz got her material from newspapers, letters, and the random interview, and put it togther almost despite her father. She herself had been married to another brutal ass, then divorced him, and had to legally fight to change her name back to Sandoz. Her fight and perseverance are traits that harbor no mystery as to from where they originate.
Another one of my Diamond in the Rough books...
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