Customer Reviews

Early Autumn: A Story of a Lady

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

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.

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.

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'.

Early Autumn won the Pulitzer in 1926, and like many of the Pulitzer winners around this time, the focus was much more on the story than the storytelling. Unfortunately, the story being told was one that's been told a million times before. Woman marries into wealthy and prestigious family. Her husband is cold and indifferent. She falls in love with a lowly farmhand. They promise to run away together. Instead, they don't.

There are 4 similar books I can think of off hand that tell a similar story but are much more engaging.

Took a long time to get here, but when it arrived it was better than "excellent" for a collector's item!