The Starling by Juliet Wilbor Tompkins. Bobbs-Merrill (1919), 267 pp.
Eleven-year-old Sarah Cawthorne, who relies on her imagination to keep herself amused, wants to give a party. She’s being home-schooled, has no friends, and seldom leaves her yard, which is surrounded by a high hedge. Her father, a language professor at Berkeley, will never allow any partying -- or any noise at all. Complete silence is one of the commands he’s issued to Sarah and her perpetually fearful mother. Nevertheless, they plan the event behind his back and hold it when he’s out of town. The party is a huge success, due to the help of teenage go-getter Robert Russell. Sarah garners invitations in return. In other homes she’s startled to see friendly fathers and unterrorized families. For the first time she realizes that she must try to break free.
The story skips ahead ten years. Still stuck at home, Sarah confronts her father, demanding some acknowledgment of her personhood. In a blood-chilling scene, so vivid that readers will suspect the author experienced something like it in real life, he dismisses her concerns with flippancy and disdain. The portait of Sarah’s mother, a frail and kindly woman living in complacent subjugation, is similarly dismaying. Tompkins’ story is perhaps grimmer than she intended, but it’s far from a tale of hopelessness. Sarah begins a career and develops some attachments to the opposite sex. The book ends on a happy note but still leaves issues unresolved. Stories of family life seem to appeal to women more than men, which may explain why novels on the subject from the past have languished in obscurity. The Starling, however, like other books from its era, is now easily accessible. So it could find an appreciative audience among female readers.
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