Signet 824 (Nov., 1950). First Printing. Cover Art by Harmon
“State Fair” is a 1932 novel by Phil Stong about an Iowa farm family's visit to the Iowa State Fair, where the family's two teenage children each fall in love, but ultimately break up with their respective new loves and return to their familiar life back on the farm. Thomas Leslie, the author of Iowa State Fair: “Country Comes to Town,” wrote that the novel “State Fair” is "a surprisingly dark coming-of-age story that took as its major plot device the effects of the 'worldly temptations' of the Iowa State Fair on a local farming family", capturing tensions between urban Des Moines and rural Iowa.
The novel became a bestseller and established Stong as a popular author. Shortly after its publication, the novel was made into a Hollywood film in 1933 starring Will Rogers (albeit with the addition of a happy "Hollywood ending" not in the book), and was subsequently adapted for the stage and screen several more times, including as a Rodgers and Hammerstein movie musical in 1945. [Source: Wikipedia]
www.youtube.com/watch?v=nApAMA-eO7A
Signet 824 (Nov., 1950). First Printing. Cover Art by Harmon
“State Fair” is a 1932 novel by Phil Stong about an Iowa farm family's visit to the Iowa State Fair, where the family's two teenage children each fall in love, but ultimately break up with their respective new loves and return to their familiar life back on the farm. Thomas Leslie, the author of Iowa State Fair: “Country Comes to Town,” wrote that the novel “State Fair” is "a surprisingly dark coming-of-age story that took as its major plot device the effects of the 'worldly temptations' of the Iowa State Fair on a local farming family", capturing tensions between urban Des Moines and rural Iowa.
The novel became a bestseller and established Stong as a popular author. Shortly after its publication, the novel was made into a Hollywood film in 1933 starring Will Rogers (albeit with the addition of a happy "Hollywood ending" not in the book), and was subsequently adapted for the stage and screen several more times, including as a Rodgers and Hammerstein movie musical in 1945. [Source: Wikipedia]
www.youtube.com/watch?v=nApAMA-eO7A