SOURCE: "At War with Texas," in The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 190, No. 4, October, 1952, pp. 100-01.

Adams is an American writer and critic. In the following review of Giant, she favorably assesses its plot, themes, and characterizations.

The state of Texas is hero, heroine, villain, and supporting cast in Edna Ferber's new novel, Giant and at that, Miss Ferber doesn't pretend to deal with the whole state. She has settled for that portion of Texas with more than ten millions, plus its Mexican retainers. That adds up to a large number of people, but Texas overshadows all of them.

Although Miss Ferber writes to entertain, and never fails to do it with an expert mixture of action, sentiment, humor, and melodrama, two themes not usually classed as entertainment have appeared in most of her novels. One is the corrosive effect of money, and the other is the evil of group...