Those Jordan Girls — Joan M. Drury

The story about Gummie that always got the most attention was the one about her never having had sex with her hus band. Of course, everyone always wanted to know then, how I -- her greatgranddaughter -- had come about, but actually, that was the easy part. The hard part was: was it true?

Those Jordan Girls is the sweeping epic novel about four generations of women living together in a sprawling house in small-town Minnesota in the mid-twentieth century. Iris ("Gummie") Jordan is the formidable, larger-thanlife matriarch of the clan, whose unconventional life includes publishing a left-wing newspaper as well as standing in the forefront of all the major social movements of the twentieth century, from the farmer/labor activism of the early part of the century to the civil rights movements of the 1950s and 1960s. Iris' daughter, Hester, struggles to accept her destiny as Iris Jordan's daughter, while creating an existence that allows for her own individual spirit. Jane, Iris' granddaughter, is a combination of her mother's quiet strength and her grandmother's iconoclastic ways. And finally, Maddie Jordan, the youngest member of this remarkable quartet, readily drinks in the wisdom and love lavished upon her by her elders, to eventually become another strong, sure, independent thinker, truly one of "those Jordan girls."