AN ELEGANT WOMAN by Martha McPhee

I would expect a certain amount of confusion when reading a book about four generations of women, and there is that.  The narrator is fourth-generation Isadora, but her grandmother and great-grandmother dominate the novel, and rightfully so.  The first generation woman is Glenna, who leaves her husband in bed with his mistress in Ohio and takes their two daughters westward by train.  Glenna plans to make a living as an itinerant teacher, despite her lack of credentials and the disadvantage of having two small children in tow.  The elder daughter is Thelma, known as Tommy, who becomes a mother to her sister Katherine during Glenna’s lengthy absences.  Tommy has to sacrifice her own educational aspirations in order to run the household so that Katherine can graduate.  As adults, their lives diverge in a surprising way, with Tommy going east and Katherine going west.  Katherine decides to be known as Pat, since her middle name is Patricia, which she deems more suitable for her plan to become an actress. Tommy changes her name also and basically takes on a whole new identity, in an effort to become the person she wants to be.  Tommy then tries to ensure that her daughter Winter’s childhood is the complete opposite of her own.  In any case, Tommy’s life is the main focus of the novel and the glue which holds it all together, and for me, Tommy is the title character, although I guess one could argue that all four generations of women are elegant in their own way.  Male characters receive fairly cursory treatment here, except for Slim, Pat’s son, who can’t help but wonder how his life would have unfolded had his mother followed the path that Tommy forged.  This book is reminiscent of Wallace Stegner’s masterpiece, Angle of Repose, but does not quite rise to that standard.