At the Foot of the Rainbow
1907
At the foot of the rainbow, in the muddy shallows of the Wabash River, Jimmy Malone wades through water and wit in equal measure. Gene Stratton-Porter's 1907 novel captures a particular American moment: the liminal space between wilderness and settlement where a young man can still trap muskrats, philosophize about whiskey, and dream of something more. Jimmy is irresistible in his contradictions, sharp-tongued yet tender, restless yet deeply rooted in the land. When his friend Dannie Macnoun enters the picture, the story deepens into something more than a nature sketch, hinting at the emotional stakes and societal pressures these rural lives must navigate. Stratton-Porter writes with humor that masks sorrow, and her love for the natural world transforms every muskrat and river bend into something luminous. This is a novel about thirst in all its forms, about what it means to want, and about the particular beauty of lives lived close to the earth.
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“There is one great beauty in idealized romance: reading it can make no one worse than he is, while it may help thousands to a cleaner life and higher inspiration than they ever before have known.””
— Gene Stratton-Porter
“To my way of thinking and working the greatest service a piece of fiction can do any reader is to leave him with a higher ideal of life than he had when he began. If in one small degree it shows him where he can be a gentler, saner, cleaner, kindlier man, it is a wonder-working book. If it opens his eyes to one beauty in nature he never saw for himself, and leads him one step toward the God of the Universe, it is a beneficial book, for one step into the miracles of nature leads to that long walk, the glories of which so strengthen even a boy who thinks he is dying, that he faces his struggle like a gladiator.””
— Gene Stratton-Porter
“Such a big majority of book critics and authors have begun to teach, whether they really believe it or not, that no book is TRUE TO LIFE unless it is true to the WORST IN LIFE, that the idea has infected even the women.””
— Gene Stratton-Porter
“My life has been fortunate in one glad way: I have lived mostly in the country and worked in the woods. For every bad man and woman I have ever known, I have met, lived with, and am intimately acquainted with an overwhelming number of thoroughly clean and decent people who still believe in God and cherish high ideals, and it is UPON THE LIVES OF THESE THAT I BASE WHAT I WRITE. To contend that this does not produce a picture true to life is idiocy. It does. It produces a picture true to ideal life; to the best that good men and good women can do at level best.””
— Gene Stratton-Porter
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Stratton-Porter, Gene. At the Foot of the Rainbow. Lex, lex-books.com/book/at-the-foot-of-the-rainbow-36aa0490-4638-402f-9035-94e8254d7ebd.Stratton-Porter, G. (1907). At the Foot of the Rainbow. Lex. https://lex-books.com/book/at-the-foot-of-the-rainbow-36aa0490-4638-402f-9035-94e8254d7ebdStratton-Porter, Gene. At the Foot of the Rainbow. Lex. https://lex-books.com/book/at-the-foot-of-the-rainbow-36aa0490-4638-402f-9035-94e8254d7ebd.
