The poorhouse fair

Description:

"On the third Wednesday of every August the inhabitants of a mansion-turned-poorhouse in central New Jersey hold their annual fair; this novel describes a fair that occurs about twenty years from now [1958], when the United States itself is heading downhill ... While 'The Poorhouse Fair, ' insofar as it regrets the decline of patriotism, handcraft, and religion, carries a conservative message, its technique is unorthodox; without so much regard for fictional conventions, the author attempts to locate, in the ambiguous area between farce and melodrama, reality's own tone."

subjects: Fiction,  Poor,  Almshouses,  Fairs,  Older people,  Middle class men,  Harry Angstrom (Fictitious character),  Psychological fiction,  General,  American fiction,  Male authors,  American fiction (fictional works by one author),  Fiction, psychological