The Wheeler house was good, modern and commonplace. Walter Wheeler and his wife were like the house. Just as here and there among the furniture there was a fine thing, an antique highboy, a Sheraton sideboard or some old cut glass, so they had, with a certain mediocrity their own outstanding virtues. They liked music, believed in the home as the unit of the nation, put happiness before undue ambition, and had devoted their lives to their children. For many years their lives had centered about the children. For years they had held anxious conclave about whooping cough, about small early disobediences, later about Sunday tennis. They stood united to protect the children against disease, trouble and eternity.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
An early psychological mystery,
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This review is from: The Breaking Point (Paperback)
Rinehart has created a fascinating hero in this mystery, and he's doomed to suffer mightily from her investigations into character.
Dick Livingston is 32 years old and lives with his elderly uncle and aunt. Both Dick and his Uncle David are doctors in a town that values all the old-fashioned virtues. Dick is perfectly happy with his life until he falls in love with Elizabeth, a lovely young woman who sings in the choir. He's not comfortable with marrying until he clears up certain mysteries in his past. It seems Dick lost his memory ten years back. His Uncle David found him desperately ill in a remote cabin in Wyoming, restored his health and led him out of the mountains in a strangely surreptitious manner, as if Dick were some kind of fugitive. Could he, indeed, be a fugitive? Uncle David is keeping something back. Dick decides to return to Wyoming, where he lost his previous self, and find out who he really is. Rinehart's book, while both a mystery and a love story, is also an exploration of psychological questions. Psychology was young when this book was published (1922), and Rinehart caught the fever of examining the nature of mind. Her hero is really two people - each separately influenced by circumstance - with a wall between them. The reader anxiously awaits the breaking point that will bring down the wall. I liked this book a lot. It may not represent the latest scientific thinking, but it showed an adventurous intellect in its day. I always enjoy looking through a window in time, seeing how people thought and lived a century ago. Aside from all that, the story is engaging, full of interesting characters and surprising developments.
3.0 out of 5 stars
Tediously long - Rinehart had better works,
By Catspec "Catspec" (VT USA) - See all my reviews
This review is from: The Breaking Point (Paperback)
The Amazing Interlude is for better than The Breaking Point. My feeling when listening to this book (on Librivox) was that it could have been written (and might have been) for a long serialization....very long. And paid by the chapter for sure. I love literature of this era and have read and listened to many works of Haggard, Doyle, Anna Katherine Green and several other Rinehart novels. That she was trying to support her family in tough times is evident here. Although an interesting and convoluted story, well written as far as prose style and character development, it is twice the length it should be. You find yourself desiring to skip the middle ten chapters or so, but plod on. Read this for the feeling of an era, but know that it is not typical of all works of the author or of her times.
2 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
fun, old fashioned mystery,
This review is from: The Breaking Point (Paperback)
Nothing heavy here, but it's a light mystery read. It was written almost 100 years ago, so don't look for sex, violence and whatever, but it is a nice, light read for those of us who like to read away a lazy afternoon.
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22
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- Authors of the Day by Grant Overton on 5 pages
- When Winter Comes to Main Street by Grant Overton on 5 pages
- Technique in Dramatic Art by Halliam Bosworth on page 26, page 111, and page 240
- The Web of Iniquity: Early Detective Fiction by American Women by Catherine Ross Nickerson on page 161, and Back Matter
- The 1920s (American Popular Culture Through History) by Kathleen M. Drowne on page 174
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