This
week I read her 1923 novel A Son at the Front, a title borrowed from the
parents of soldiers in the first World War. Wharton lived in Paris
throughout the War.
A focal
point of the story is a young man named George, his parents are Americans, but
he was born while they were in France making him a French national subject to
the French military mobilization guidelines even though everyone considers him
to be an American.
His
father John Campton is a successful portrait artist who went to Paris along
with his wife Julia (because do not all artists end up in Paris?). His socialite
mother tired of being an artist’s wife, divorced him, and married Anderson
Brant, an extremely rich banker.
Campton
has spent much of his life bitter that George as a child lived with his mother
and her new husband. To put it mildly he hates Brant for being able to provide
George with every material thing and all the connections he needs.
Much of
the storyline deals with the dynamic between Campton and Brant, who begin the
story conspiring, each in his own way, to keep George out of the military.
George is indifferent to the service though his thoughts on the “war to end all
wars” evolves during the war and he enlists. Over the course of the book
Campton and Brant will learn they each care only for George and learn to
respect each other for the roles they play in his life. And although they want
to protect him realize that he has a right to make his own decisions – a point
his mother never concedes.
There
are many other characters entailed in this story, all interesting subplots,
weaving them together is done masterfully.
Recommendation: Highly Recommended, the book is pure genius.
