The HomeMaker Author:Dorothy Canfield Fisher This is a book for every stay-at-home mother who has ever felt guilty for wanting a nine-to-five job, for every father who spends his work days longing to be home with his children. Far ahead of its time in 1924, The Home-maker can still bring light to many who find their frustrations, passions, and dreams revealed in the lives of Evangeline and... more » Lester Knapp. For fourteen years, Evangeline has been a full-time homemaker, pouring her considerable talent and energy into making a perfect house and perfect children, "forced, day after day, hour by hour, minute by minute, with no respite, into the life-and-death closeness of contact with the raw, unfinished personalities of the children, from which her own ripe maturity recoiled in ever-renewed impatience." Lester, on the other hand, is an absent-minded poet, hopelessly ill-suited to his job as an accountant. When Lester takes a near-fatal fall from a roof, however, their roles are reversed. Evangeline becomes a saleswoman - happy, fulfilled, making far more money than Lester ever hoped to - while Lester's paralyzed legs ironically provide him with a socially acceptable reason to stay home and relish the imperfect unfolding of his children's lives. Dorothy Canfield follows the Knapp family's pre- and post-accident lives, shifting her focus from one character to the next, illuminating differences rather than failings, asking for tolerance in a world bound by tradition. Her conclusion is both triumphant and painful, raising as many questions as it answers about individuals and society.« less