Fanny Herself

MP3 Audio CD. First published in 1917, Fanny Herself is one of Edna Ferber?s semi-autobiographical books recounting her own experiences as a young Jewish girl growing up in a Midwestern town at the end of the 19th century. Ferber is more known to the public for her Pulitzer-winning novel, So Big, for her other successful novel entitled Giant, and for her Cimarron, another novel made into a movie and receiving the Academy Award for Best Picture in 1931, but this book also shows Ferber?s talent as a novelist at its best.

Fanny, the protagonist of the novel, is as ambitious and driven towards success as the author herself was. She leaves the town she was born in and settles in the big city. She finds employment as a saleswoman and she works hard to transform the company she was hired by into a solid and thriving business. Her struggles are crowned by success ? her determination to prove herself being paired with wits and resourcefulness guarantee that outcome from the beginning.

Edna Ferber?s book is a character development novel, one of the best of the kind, but it is also a book about religious tolerance, Jewish culture, the general attitude of the Midwest towards Jews as well as about social issues and economic development. The company Fanny starts working for is a Chicago-based mail order catalog company, a new and modern business that grows rapidly. Fanny also belongs to a new class, that of the independent and ambitious young woman and the author manages to capture the character and to place it organically into social context.

The great structure and the well-penned, intriguing characters are teamed with masterful and exciting storytelling and lots of humor, too, making Fanny Herself a captivating read - one that you will want to enjoy in one go, from cover to cover.