The Anniversary and Other Stories [Hardcover]

Louis Auchincloss (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 1, 1999

Nine previously unpublished stories from the master storyteller of America's moneyed class "A superb short story writer . . . Not since Dreiser has an American writer had so much to tell us about the role of money in our lives." -- Gore Vidal "When it comes to the minute social differences and unexpected human conflicts that can be the life of fiction, there is simply no one else like him." -- Alfred Kazin Louis Auchincloss has been described as "one of the best writers alive" and as "a psychologist, social observer, and historian rolled into one." In his thirteenth work of short fiction, The Anniversary and Other Stories, he once again assembles a masterful collection, bringing his keen insight and great understanding to the moral dilemmas of America's high society.

These nine wonderfully nuanced tales center on people looking back on the sweep of their lives. Crisscrossing a tumultuous century, their stories evoke lives both blessed and cursed by good fortune and reveal with aching clarity the ethical conflicts of this rich milieu. Here are vignettes that capture the loves and jealousies of marriage and friendship, that recall days of a rarefied aristocracy and hint at a new, emerging elite. In the title story, a tour de force of humor and emotion, a clergyman prepares a toast for his twenty-fifth wedding anniversary but keeps getting stuck over his wife's five-year affair. Whether these stories concern a savvy courtesan, a repentant headmaster, or any of a dozen other memorable characters, they offer a soulful glimpse into an uncommon world -- and all the while surprise us with their universal themes of passion, betrayal, and redemption. A member of the Academy of Arts and Letters and the author of fifty-five books of fiction and nonfiction, Louis Auchincloss lives in New York City. He is the author of, among other works, The Rector of Justin.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Louis Auchincloss had four decades to perfect his art before embarking on this, his 55th book, and all that practice shows. The prose in The Anniversary, a collection of nine short stories, harks back to an earlier age--the days of Henry James and Edith Wharton, when every word counted and every sentence was polished to a high gloss. Indeed, those years are Auchincloss's fictional stomping grounds, as well; his tales stretch from the closing decades of the 19th century through the first half of the 20th, but stop resolutely short of the tumultuous 1960s and beyond. In one, "The Virginia Redbird," James even makes a cameo appearance as a visitor to the London home of the heroine who, in typical Jamesian fashion, has entered into marriage for all the wrong reasons. The title story shows off Auchincloss's many strengths: carefully crafted prose, psychological acuity, and a complex narrative that looks easier to recount than it really is. The protagonist, a minister, reflects on the peculiar circumstances of his 25th wedding anniversary with a woman who had run off to Italy with another man and stayed away for five years before eventually returning. Auchincloss obviously delights in the intricacies of public versus private responses to this betrayal, and the eventual resolution to the story is as satisfying as it is elegant.

A professional woman who trades in lawyering for marriage; a Christian minister and headmaster who doesn't consider himself a Christian; a courtesan who has slept herself to the top of the social register--these are the characters who populate Auchincloss's world. Though their stories may seem old-fashioned, they are never outdated, dealing as they do with universal themes of conscience, forgiveness, and love. --Margaret Prior

From Publishers Weekly

These nine previously unpublished stories feature the author's usual preoccupations: the WASP aristocracy confronting moral dilemmas in the boardrooms, prep schools and churches of Manhattan, Westchester and Newport from the Gilded Age to the present. The husbands wrestle with the infidelity of their lovely, penitent wives ("The Interlude," "The Anniversary"); with sexual improprieties at a posh prep school ("The Devil and Guy Lansing"); with reconciling the urge to follow one's muse as poet or to serve one's country in battle ("Man of Renaissance"). The author pays overt homage to James and Wharton, who explored similar themes with inimitable grace and subtlety. Here, however, the characters verge on banal, the dialogue is stilted and the snobbery oppressive. The intrusion of real-life figuresAHenry James is one character's cousin; Frank Lloyd Wright designs a house for patrician newlyweds, and Julia Ward Howe appears in the last story, "The Veteran," ready to recite her "Battle Hymn of the Republic" to an elite audience in NewportApoints up the insubstantiality of Auchincloss's characterizations. The prose is arch, stagy, sometimes risible. One narrator admits, "In the tumultuous fury of my mind in the next few days I must have waxed almost irrational"; a Yale-educated painter asks the glittering opportunist sitting for her portrait, "Wasn't Paul a perfectly competent lover?" The reply: "He was. Very male. But with Eric I was in the hands of a master." Theodore Roosevelt himself, advising a gifted poet to seriously turn his attention to politics, concedes, "Poetry is bully!" While his early novels (The Rector of Justin) and previous story collections are certain to assure Auchincloss a preeminent place in American letters, this later short fiction may strike a young audience as already dated.
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 208 pages
• Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Company (January 1, 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0395970741
• ISBN-13: 978-0395970744
• Product Dimensions: 8.2 x 5.7 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,170,006 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Agreed...fresh material, October 6, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: The Anniversary and Other Stories (Hardcover)

Mr Auchincloss has been very repetitive with themes and plots with his last few novels and short stories. This book provides some fresh stories, a few with some surprising twists. If you like Auchincloss but were getting bored, this is worth a try

4.0 out of 5 stars Back on Track!, June 29, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: The Anniversary and Other Stories (Hardcover)

Mr. Auchincloss' elegant prose enchants once again. Gone is a recent tendency to repeat themes; these stories seem fresher and better thought out than his last collection, The Atonement. A must for the discriminating reader.

0 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars I'd Recommend This As A Starting Place For Those Wanting To Get Into Louis Auchincloss, January 29, 2009

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Notnadia (Currently upstairs.) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Anniversary and Other Stories (Hardcover)

The Anniversary is one of Mr. Auchincloss' best collections, with the title entry being in my estimation the greatest story he has written in the last twenty years. I've read my share of works by this author, and frankly enjoyable as they are while they are being read, they too often blend in together and are forgotten once the book is concluded, but happily The Anniversary contains a number of short stories that linger in my memory. This is the anthology I'd suggest as a good starting place for an exploration of this fine teller of tales.