The Little Locksmith by Katharine Butler Hathaway

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Title: The Little Locksmith

Author: Katharine Butler Hathaway

Genre: Biography/Memoir

Length: 237 pages

Published: 1943

Publisher: Coward-McCann Inc, NY

Brief Synopsis: (Taken from Goodreads) The Little Locksmith, Katharine Butler Hathaway's luminous memoir of disability, faith, and transformation, is a critically acclaimed but largely forgotten literary classic brought back into print for the first time in thirty years. The Little Locksmith begins in 1895 when a specialist straps five-year-old Katharine, then suffering from spinal tuberculosis, to a board with halters and pulleys in a failed attempt to prevent her being a "hunchback." Her mother says that she should be thankful that her parents are able to have her cared for by a famous surgeon; otherwise, she would grow up to be like the "little locksmith," who does jobs at their home; he has a "strange, awful peak in his back." Forced to endure "a horizontal life of night and day," Katharine remains immobile until age fifteen, only to find that she, too, has a hunched back and is "no larger than a ten-year-old child." The Little Locksmith charts Katharine's struggle to transcend physical limitations and embrace her life, her body and herself in the face of debilitating bouts of frustration and shame. Her spirit and courage prevail, and she succeeds in expanding her world far beyond the boundaries prescribed by her family and society: she attends Radcliffe College, forms deep friendships, begins to write, and in 1921, purchases a house of her own in Castine, Maine. There she creates her home, room by room, fashioning it as a space for guests, lovers, and artists. The Little Locksmith stands as a testimony to Katharine's aspirations and desires-for independence, for love, and for the pursuit of her art. We tend to forget nowadays that there is more than one variety of hero (and heroine). Katharine Butler Hathaway, who died last Christmas Eve, was the kind of heroine whose deeds are rarely chronicled. They were not spectacular and no medal would have been appropriate for her. All she did was to take a life which fate had cast in the mold of a frightful tragedy and redesign it into a quiet, modest work of art. The life was her own.

My Review:

I give this book a 4 out of 5. 

This is a touching memoir about a woman who was afflicted with spinal tuberculosis as a young child. In order to prevent her back from having a horrible hump, she was strapped to a board for 10 years of her life. She still ended up with a deformity, but probably not as severe as what she would have had without this treatment. 

Her time as an invalid taught her to enjoy all of the little things around her, things that most people take for granted. This story tells how she rose above her deformity and became the woman she thinks she was meant to be. I found the writing to be a bit flowery and perhaps overly descriptive in some aspects, but as she spent her childhood and young adulthood writing poetry, I suppose this is to be expected. This is truly a touching tale and definitely worth the read!

You can purchase The Little Locksmith through Amazon in either hard copy or Kindle format. 

Have you read The Little Locksmith? If so, leave a comment and let me know your thoughts! 

Please note: I was not compensated in any way for this review. It is strictly my opinion.