Wharton's antiwar masterpiece, now once again available, probes the devastation of World War I on the home front. Interweaving her own experiences of the Great War with themes of parental and filial love, art and self-sacrifice, national loyalties and class privilege, Wharton tells an intimate and captivating story of war behind the lines.
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Editorial Reviews
From Publishers Weekly
Largely criticized or ignored by a war-weary public when it was originally published in 1922, A Son at the Front is an extraordinarily poignant novel chronicling the effects of WWI on painter John Campton and his only child, George. Because his American parents were visiting France at the time of his birth, George is called to duty in the French army. Campton, his ex-wife, Julia Brant, and her husband, wealthy banker Anderson Brant, immediately butt heads over how to keep George safely at a desk job. Fate intervenes in the person of George himself, who transfers to an infantry regiment-to the horror of Julia and the secret admiration of Brant and Campton. As the war rages on, Campton learns not only the value of his son, but empathy and sensitivity: ``never before, at least not consciously, [had] he thought of himself and the few beings he cared for as part of a greater whole.... But the last four months had shown him man as a defenceless animal.... That was what war did; that was why those who best understood it in all its farthest-reaching abomination willingly gave their lives to put an end to it.'' Wharton movingly portrays those left behind during war-not the wives and children but the devastated parents, who are forced to go on living at the cost of their own flesh and blood. Heartrending, tragic, powerful, this is not to be missed.
Copyright 1995 Cahners Business Information, Inc.
--This text refers to the Hardcover edition.Review
"Extraordinarily poignant.... Heartrending, tragic, powerful, this is not to be missed."—Publishers Weekly
"Wharton has done nothing that equals this."—New York Times Book Review (1923)
"Wharton has painted a moving landscape."—War, Literature & the Arts
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6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
War and the family,
This review is from: A SON AT THE FRONT (Paperback)
"A Son at the Front," a novel by Edith Wharton, has been republished with an introduction by Shari Benstock. Benstock notes that the novel was serialized from 1922 to 1923 and that an edition was published by Charles Scribner's Sons in 1923. The novel tells the story of John Campton, an American portrait painter who lives in France. Campton's son George, because he was born in France, is subject to mobilization in the French army for World War I. As the story unfolds we see the war's impact on father and son, as well as on George's mother (from whom Campton is divorced) and her current husband, and on other individuals.
Wharton poignantly portrays the anguish and challenges faced by the families of soldiers during wartime. She shows how the horror and violence of war touches even those who are far from the front lines. Yes, I felt that the story briefly dragged at times and that some of the minor characters could have been better drawn, but the novel is overall interesting and at times profoundly moving. I was particularly intrigued by the fact that George is the child not of a happy, saccharine couple, but of a divorced couple who are forced to come together over their common concern in time of war. It is in the drama involving George's parents and stepfather where the book often has its most powerful edge. This book offers an interesting look at the role of soldier's families, and also of the arts community, during wartime. Also significant is Wharton's look at the importance of personal letters as a communication medium during war. More than eighty years after its initial publication, and with the United States once more at war, "A Son at the Front" remains a relevant work of literature by one of America's most noteworthy novelists.
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