50 book challenge: #2.

Marcia Davenport, The Valley of Decision. An epic saga of one Pittsburgh family, and the sweet Irish maid that loved them, spanning the eventful years from 1873 to 1941. Actually, this book was defiantly mediocre in character sketching, plotting, and overall tone (everyone regardless of time sounds like they're talking in 1940-speak), but of course it was the local color that kept me interested. The family in question, the Scotts, live in a grand house on Western Avenue, on the North Side of today but what was then better known as Allegheny (formerly an independent city from Pittsburgh). One day a poor Irish lass, Mary Rafferty, shows up to begin work as a servant, and slowly grows closer to the family, falls in love with the family's scion - a love that must be denied! - etc., etc. At the same time, the Scotts' iron works suffer all the upheavals of labor disputes, business struggles, boom times during war, etc. Conveniently the book allows Mary an opportunity to better herself and drop her Irish brogue, which is fortunate as it is so difficult to empathize with a character who talks all low-class and whatnot. There was a somewhat odd diversion in the last third into the politics of Czechoslovakia, as one of the main characters falls in love with a Czech. This was part of the book's overall very noble socially progressive attitude toward getting deeper into the lives of the people known in Pittsburgh simply as "Hunkies" (short for Hungarian), but who were in fact from any of the former Habsburg Empire countries, mainly including Slovakia and the Czech lands. Apparently, Davenport, who was a writer for the New Yorker, spent two years living in Pittsburgh to prepare for writing the novel - and she clearly loves the place. I only wish I could have seen the "hell with the lid off" qualities of the infernal mills lining the rivers as she describes them - how they would fill the sky with fire at all times of the day or night. I mean, I'm glad I don't have to live with that, but I wonder if there's video of it.