My Mortal Enemy, Willa Cather

I haven't seen a post about this book anywhere, so I figured I'd share my summary.

This was my first Willa Cather, and I knew it wasn't considered one of her best works, but I really enjoyed it! It's short, more of a novella, told in two parts through the eyes of Nellie Birdseye, a teenager from rural Illinois coming of age on a trip to New York City (Part 1). This reads almost like a YA novel a la Little House on the Prairie.

Here she spends time with her aunt's eccentric and lively friend, Myra Henshawe and her husband Oswald. Scenes in New York reminded me of the Gilded Age.

Without giving away too much the second half of the story takes a markedly darker turn. 10 years on, Nellie has an unexplained falling out with her previously secure and loving family, and lives at a boarding hotel in a "western" city (presumably San Francisco). The henshawes return without all of the glamor and refinement of earlier days, exposing the vulnerabilities faced by working people when juxtaposed against Myra's wealthy upbringing and contrasted with their lifestyle in part 1. This is told as a sort of tragedy and unraveling of the character, as she further declines in health.

Cather says so much yet paints in broad strokes, and perhaps that is her genius. The theme of 'enemy' is unspooled slowly and ends with a bang when delivered as one line by Myra, in both part 1 and part 2. The word enemy appears only 3 or 4 times in the book, and still in the end we are left questioning who it really is. The theme, like Don Quixote, is sort of chasing windmills, that some fights are imagined, especially when, as audience, we are able to empathize with multiple perspectives.

I really enjoyed the book and it only took about 1 hour. I will be checking out Cather's other works, as I was never required to read them in school.