Reviews
"In the vast scope and crystalline detail ofThe Valley of Decision, Marcia Davenport has achieved a truly monumental work which never for one instant loses its quality of stirring human interest." --Book Review Digest, "Entwined with family histories, Marcia Davenport has re-created the industrialization of Pittsburgh from the post-Civil War era to the 1940s. Beginning with the Scottish steel barons to the Irish, Czech, and Slovak immigrants who fought for unionization, she shows what made Pittsburgh synonymous with steel, smog, and struggle. It feels like reality, not the alternate reality that fiction is presumed to be. Her characters are as real as the streets and neighborhoods she knows by name." --Samuel Hazo, author of And the Time Is: Poems, 1953-2013, "Entwined with family histories, Marcia Davenport has re-created the industrialization of Pittsburgh from the post-Civil War era to the 1940s. Beginning with the Scottish steel barons to the Irish, Czech, and Slovak immigrants who fought for unionization, she shows what made Pittsburgh synonymous with steel, smog, and struggle. It feels like reality, not the alternate reality that fiction is presumed to be. Her characters are as real as the streets and neighborhoods she knows by name." --Samuel Hazo, author of And the Time Is: Poems, 1953-2013, "The best family chronicle since The Forsyte Saga . A vibrant and realistic novel of America . . . as strong, bright, and finely tempered as the steel of which it tells. " --The Philadelphia Inquirer, "In the vast scope and crystalline detail of The Valley of Decision , Marcia Davenport has achieved a truly monumental work which never for one instant loses its quality of stirring human interest." --Book Review Digest, "Marcia Davenport's The Valley of Decision stands foremost in my memory of the books about Pittsburgh that I liked best of all." --David McCullough, two-time Pulitzer Prize winner and two-time National Book Award winner, "A magnificent novel about human beings who spring full-featured and living from its pages. Its not too much to call The Valley of Decision a real American saga." --New York Times , "Marcia Davenport's The Valley of Decision stands foremost in my memory of the books about Pittsburgh that I liked best of all." --David McCullough, two-time Pulitzer Prize winner and two-time National Book Award winner , "A vibrant and realistic novel of America . . . as strong, bright, and finely tempered as the steel of which it tells." --Philadelphia Inquirer, "A magnificent novel about human beings who spring full-featured and living from its pages. . . . It is not too much to call The Valley of Decision a real American saga." --New York Times
