Synopsis

It’s a Wonderful Life is a movie about a man named George Bailey who discovers, in the love of his neighbors, how much good he’s done in the world. Now imagine that George Bailey turned out to be an embezzler.

That’s the issue at the core of The John Wood Case, a remarkable novel about the moral crisis that besets a close-knit town in Iowa shortly after the turn of the twentieth century, when it emerges that the community’s leading citizen is not at all what he seemed. John Wood is the mystery at the heart of the swirling emotions and imperatives that his friends, neighbors and employer must navigate in coping with the scandal.

Nobody is hit harder by the revelation than Wood’s cherished son Philip, who is about to graduate from the local high school as valedictorian. The tale is brilliantly handled from every perspective by the late Ruth Suckow, possibly America’s most unjustly forgotten writer. Originally published in 1959 and set half a century earlier, The John Wood Case will strike readers today as timeless-and irresistible.

Championed by H. L. Mencken and befriended by Robert Frost, Ruth Suckow (1892-1960) was a daughter of Iowa who wrote about its towns and their people throughout her celebrated literary career. Descended from German immigrants, she was born in newly settled Hawarden; her father was a Congregational minister whose work took the family to various rural communities, some little removed from life on the frontier. Suckow later wrote about her own spiritual awakening, and The John Wood Case (her final novel) brilliantly explores what happens when worldly transgression occurs in a religious context. Much praised in her prime, by the end of her life she had published nine novels and 43 short stories. She is buried in Cedar Falls, Iowa.

“A novel of warmth, substance and considerable vigor… Miss Suckow has returned to the Iowa she knows and loves so well to tell the story of a scandal that shredded the fabric of life in a beautiful little town named Fairview… drawn with brilliant verisimilitude.” — Victor P. Hass, The New York Times

“The effects of one man's dishonesty upon the townspeople of a closely knit community in Iowa at the turn of the century is the theme of this sober and thoughtful novel. The impact is not financial but moral and Miss Suckow explores this avenue with a delicate and probing pen.” — Mildred Zaiman, The Hartford Courant

“The crisis of the plot occurs in the home of John Wood, a pillar of the community who is suddenly revealed to be a thief and a liar. John's invalid wife, Minnie, suffers with him in his disgrace, but it is their handsome, popular seventeen-year-old son, Philip, who is hardest hit by the family catastrophe.” — The New Yorker

“It is the betrayal itself and the moral crisis it creates for the people in the town that are the central theme of the book.” — Evelyn Levy, The Baltimore Sun

“The news throws Fairview into a turmoil of dismay, as if the earth were crumbling from under the houses… Delivers an impact stronger than many of the sordid and sensational scenes repeated so often in modern fiction… Rare artistry.” — Pattie Lambert, Rocky Mount (N.C.) Telegram

“Miss Suckow is not really interested in the embezzler… What she is interested in is the effect of falsity on wholeness… Perhaps no society was ever quite so lofty of spirit, no men quite so manly or women quite so womanly, no young people quite so clear of eye or pure of heart as those Miss Suckow portrays, but if they were not they should have been.” — Paul Pickrel, Harper's

“The John Wood Case is a fine and delicate examination of character, a sensitive exploration of moral experience… A warm and touching book.” — Kirkus

“She brings to life the whole town; one knows just what it would have been like to live among these people at this time.” — Harry Mooney Jr., The Pittsburgh Press

“Miss Suckow has lost none of her ability to re-create, in poignant detail, the minutiae of small-town life, particularly as it centered around the community church, in the early 1900's. And, as usual, her book is a surprise.” — Silence Buck Bellows, The Christian Science Monitor

“Has the warmth, authentic detail and close human observation which have always distinguished her writing.” — Paul Engle, The Chicago Tribune

“The John Wood Case is not only fiction; it partakes of the qualities of poetry, with its graceful style, its richness of symbol, and its evidence of barely hidden meanings.” — Abigail Ann Hamblen, Friends Journal

“Suckow is still the realist who stirred Mencken's enthusiasm… The John Wood Case finds its strength in an evocation of the kind of life that the nation may never know again.” — Time

“Convincing and true to life. The narrative moves step by step to a dramatic climax, revealing the moral fiber of the different people in the town… A superb novel.” — Ruth M. Elmquist, The Christian Herald

“Some measure of awe must reach even the reader who would prefer some touch of violence.” — David Sanders, The Washington Post

“Ultimately hopeful. The novel is, finally, an eloquent statement of possibilities of growth to moral and emotional maturity through suffering.” — Mary Jean Demarr, MidAmerica