Early Autumn: A Story of a Lady [Paperback]

Louis Bromfield (Author)

Product Details

• Paperback: 312 pages
• Publisher: Wooster Book Co. (October 1, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1888683317
• ISBN-13: 978-1888683318
• Product Dimensions: 8.2 x 5.2 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #412,241 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

30 of 30 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Family Skeleton, January 30, 2004

By 

Jerry Kelley (Riverside, CA USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Early Autumn (Hardcover)

This 1927 Pulitzer Prize winner is a richly crafted character study of an old New England family at the end of its influence and name-carrying tradition. Olivia Pentland is trapped in a loveless marriage to Anson Pentland, the self-absorbed authority on Pentland family history. Languishing in the home is frail Jack Pentland, the fifteen year-old heir to the family name and fortune. Isolated in a far wing upstairs is "her" the nameless and addled wife of old John Pentland, the reigning monarch of the family. She alone is privey to a family secret which if known would uproot the Pentland family tree. Other characters are interwoven into this tale of anguish and of loves both lost and found. A real treat for the serious reader of American literature.

15 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Could Have Been Edith Wharton, March 24, 2006

By 

Bobby Jasak "Pulitzer Reader" (Washington, DC USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Early Autumn: A Story of a Lady (Paperback)

While I thoroughly enjoyed this book, I kept shutting it to look back at the cover to make sure that it hadn't been written by Edith Wharton. It certainly seems to be a very close cousin to The Age of Innoncence. In fact, I was not at all suprised when I came across this (to me, amusing) passage: "Her mother, she saw now, belonged to the America of the nineties. She saw her now less as a real person than a character out of a novel by Mrs. Wharton."

Putting the topic of mimicry aside, however, this was an incredibly engaging book with an incredibly strong main character in Olivia Pentland. In fact, of the books I have read, I would put her on par with Clarissa Vaughan (from "The Hours") and Susan Ward (from "Angle of Repose") as incredibly strong, likeable, principled women for whom you feel an attraction to know.

The story explores societal challenges (and by that I truly mean challenges from the society with which they are surrounded) to an upper class Massachusetts family. In that battle, the book is also about the desire and plight of those that seem to have a more pragmatic approach to life trying to escape the suffocating grasp of the family. The Pentland family doesn't come off as altogether bad- in fact, in some ways you fell sorry for them. However, it does paint the family as one that is increasingly out of touch with any sense of reality.

This is a very quick and easy read that its difficult to imagine not enjoying.

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars love lost, September 23, 2007

By 

Smokey Mountain Reader "er" (NC USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Early Autumn: A Story of a Lady (Paperback)

This is an engrossing story of family life and values in the early part of the 20th century. Interwoven tales of found love and lost love runs throughout the novel. The heroine finds herself unwittingly in charge of the extended family that puts itself above all other families in the area. She has to deal with a dying child, a loveless marriage, and the weight of family ancestors. She falls in love with the new owner of the neighboring estate. She draws the parallel between her love for this new man and the love her father-in-law has for a woman he has loved and kept close for most of his married life to an invalid wife. Suspense builds as we wonder what decisions she will make and what will become of 'the family'.