Customer Reviews

Family Pride Or, Purified by Suffering

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Now that I finally have all my books out, I realize that this is the 21st book that I own by Mary Jane Holmes. For those of you who don't know her-- and why should you? Mary J. Holmes was a prolific and popular romance novelist from the latter part of the 19th century. She also happened to live in the same small town as where I grew up and was my grandmother's favorite author as a girl. Most of my collection comes from my grandmother. The rest I've accumulated on my own over the years. If you haunt old bookstores, then you've probably at least seen books written by her.

Her books generally follow a familiar pattern. There is usually a family with good blood but no money. They usually become entangled in some way with a very wealthy family who feels that their wealth has elevated them above other people. In this sense, her narratives are essentially American-- Holmes insists on the basic equality of all honest men, whether quaint in their habits or not. This insistence generally plays out by contrasting two young women-- one frivolous and vain (ruined by her family), the other poor but handsome.

Family Pride is actually quite complex for one of Holmes' books. The story begins with two sisters, one of whom has been allowed to live a bit above her means by a weak and foolish mother. This slip allows her to come into the orbit of a rich and elegant bachelor (Wilfred) who is determined to marry her despite her poor family. So far, so good. Her lover is no hero, however, but calms his (and his mother's) family pride by strictly controlling his young bride and cutting her off from her family. In the meantime, one of his friends is falling for the other sister nearly because of her humble strengths.

There's a lot more to it than that. Mixed into the narrative is a man who has always loved the pretty sister from a distance, tragic deaths, the ethics of divorce and the Civil War. Although the war between the states plays a role in quite a few of Holmes' works, this was the first book in which I felt that it was a major plot point instead of background.

The character of Wilfred is chilling, and extremely strong. One of the risks of being so prolific is that Holmes had a tendency to cut her characters from the same mold-- none of her male bad guys came anywhere near his capacity for evil.

I'd still probably recommend that someone new to Holmes start with something a little more characteristic-- The English Orphans, perhaps. But this may actually be one of her best.