Books: Came, Didn’t Get It

GIANT (447 pp.)—Edna Ferber—Doubleday ($3.95).

For more than a quarter of a century Novelist Edna Ferber has specialized in just one kind of book—the bestseller. Whether she writes about the Midwest (So Big), the Northeast (American Beatify), or the Northwest (Come and Get It), the result is the same: a blend of regionalism and superslick storytelling that guarantees the bookseller some of his happiest moments. In all fairness, she gives her faithful reader full money’s worth as well. Consistent old pro that she is, Author Ferber has undoubtedly done it again at 65 with Giant, her eleventh novel and her first in seven years. Booksellers bought close to 100,000 copies in advance of publication.

Giant is about Texas and it has already had the commercial good luck to annoy a lot of Texans. Running as a serial in the Ladies’ Home Journal, it began to make enemies with the very first installment. For the Texas seen in Giant is filled with rowdy, uncouth men & women whose vulgarity runs second only to the flash wealth that nurtures it.

Poor Leslie. Leslie Lynnton met Jordan Benedict when he dropped in at her gracious old Virginia home to buy a fine horse that Dr. Lynnton owned. Leslie was slim, well read, provocatively frank and altogether charming, an exceptional gal for even the Old Dominion. “Bick” Benedict owned one of the biggest ranches in Texas, couple three million acres or so. He was big, handsome, impetuous and all male. In no time at all he wooed and won Leslie, brought her back to the huge Reata ranch as his wife.

Texas fascinated Leslie; it also appalled her. Texas food nauseated her. The famed steaks were “enormous fried slabs, flat, grey, served with a thick flour gravy,” and sometimes topped by a couple of fried eggs. The Texans seemed to her as bad as their food, loud braggarts who had stolen Texas from the Mexicans and now treated them like peons. The men were big and boorish, the women loud, overdressed nitwits. When Jett Rink, the fabulous oil millionaire, gave a party, Leslie saw “Stetsons worn with black dinner coats . . . women in Mainbocher evening gowns escorted by men in shirt sleeves and boots.” In the huge Reata house the library was bookless, the music room “mute.”

There’s Hope. Leslie was loyal. She entertained her husband’s dull friends, learned to take their new-rich gaucheries in stride, brought up two fine children. But she never stopped criticizing Texas, never let Texans drag her down to their level. At Giant’s end, daughter Luz has rebelled against Texas’ Juan-crowism, is sweet on a young fellow who is interested in scientific farming and doesn’t give a hang about million-acre ranches. Son Jordan is married to a Mexican girl, aims to become a doctor and work among the poor. In short, says Author Ferber, there’s hope for Texas yet, once this generation’s crop of oil, cotton and cattle millionaires have had their vulgar fling.