Review: The Plums Hang High by Gertrude E. Finney
They're planning to pluck down one of the American fortunes said to grow like plums on trees. But...
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Vintage Fiction | Historical Fiction | Biographical
The Plums Hang High by Gertrude E. Finney
Description
Because her husband Jethro dreams of becoming a farmer in a new land, Hannah Maria sails with him from England to America. They imagine plucking down one of the storied American fortunes said to grow like plums on trees. But no one told the couple that, well, the plums hang high.
My Thoughts
After stumbling upon and enjoying this book back in my adolescence and being deeply affected by an unexpected scene, I wanted to revisit the book for years. But it was a long shot that I’d ever find a copy of it.
• Was it a novel, a biography, or a biographical novel?
• I couldn’t remember the title.
• I couldn’t remember the author’s name.
• I couldn’t remember the names of anyone in the book.
• I remembered only one second of that one unexpected scene with clarity and…
• maybe a redheaded woman on a blue cover with a barn or something?
It took a lot of digging through pictures of old Scholastic books on the internet, hoping to run into a book cover that would match the vague red and blue image in my head, before I came across this book.
I was still rather unsure because there wasn’t any barn or house on the cover. And the title still didn’t ring a bell.
Nonetheless, I was hopeful.
Hope Becoming Reality
Maybe halfway or so through the book, I started to remember bits of what I was reading, making me more confident before I finally reached that one scene that’s stuck with me all these years—
The “long shot” hope I’d had all this time had become a reality!
How appropriate, considering this is the story of a family living and loving through ups and downs and persevering through setbacks and such long odds. Aside from one line that rubbed me the wrong way this time around (Hannah Maria thinking she’s living part of her life like “a common ”), I found about as much pleasure and inspiration reading this old-fashioned book as I did decades ago.
No, this isn’t my normal kind of book review, if it’s a review at all. But because, in a nutshell, reading is all about hope and inspiration for me, it’s well worth it to record such a hopeful and inspiring bookish journey.
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