Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings Book

Well-written and researched literary biography of the Yankee who made the Scrub of FL her heart's home. I have visited Cross Creek and was able to visualize MKR's life there and at her beach cottage south of St Augustine. It was interesting to read about her literary friendships with a pantheon of writers -- Robert Frost, Hemingway, Ellen Glasgow, Fitgerald, Zora Neale Hurston -- and her close working friendship with legendary editor Max Perkins. Reading The Yearling, I was astounded at the descriptions of the FL land and inhabitants; this biography showed me the way MKR rooted herself in her environment in order to produce that classic. The story that became The Yearling was actually one related to her by a Cracker neighbor. I also learned about the author's social activism and her support for civil rights before the movement became a call to action.