Moira Cue is reading and reviewing every Pulitzer Prize winning novel / work of fiction ever written.
Ernest Poole’s novel, His Family, published in 1917,
follows the life of a New York widower, Roger Gale, and his three
daughters in the years immediately prior to World War I. His
Family was the first book to receive the first Pulitzer Prize for
the Novel, (later renamed the Pulitzer Prize for a work of
fiction) in 1918. Roger Gale’s concern for his family,
consisting of three adult daughters, creates most of the dramatic
tension in the story. Edith, Deborah, and Laura are the eldest,
middle, and youngest daughters, respectively. Edith is married to
Bruce, a bankruptcy attorney who works long hours to care for his
wife and children.
Edith, as matriarch, is nearly obsessed with her children; giving
them the best of everything and protecting them from harm.
Deborah is the principal of a school for tenement children, many
of whom attend irregularly or not at all, and struggle with
illiteracy and other consequences of poverty, such as diseases
attributed to overcrowding. Laura, the youngest, is sometimes
frivolous and flighty (Roger thinks of her as having a
“chicken’s brain”) and marries for money as
much as love, not once, but twice in rapid succession. Edith in
particular, the most conservative of the daughters, is appalled
by Laura’s promiscuity.
Deborah, meanwhile, appears to be headed toward becoming an "old maid."
She is obsessed with the idea of bettering the lives of her impoverished
students, calling herself the “mother” of thousands
of children in her school. She feels compelled to repeatedly stall her only suitor, Doctor
Alan Baird, because she doesn’t want to do anything
selfish, such as get married or have children of her own.
Deborah’s radical political beliefs include calling herself
a “feminist” (she’s for votes for women, which
were not secured until 1920—two years after this novel won
the Pulitzer) and convincing doctors such as Baird to find
wealthy donors to pay for the medicine for children living in the
slums with illnesses they could not otherwise afford to
treat.
Roger himself has been told that he hasn’t much longer to
live. As he grows closer to death, he tries desperately to
intervene in each of his daughter’s lives so that they will
make better choices when he is no longer there to advise them.
Although he means well, there is a generation gap from where he
came from and the new century his daughters belong to. Often the
best he can do is to pay their bills when they can not do so
themselves, such as when Laura leaves the country for Europe, or
tragedy befalls Edith unexpectedly. For a novel written nearly a
hundred years ago, the characters and their viewpoints do not
seem too different from people today. As a society, their
automobiles may not have driven as fast and their medicine may
have consisted more of opiates to relieve suffering rather than
today’s advanced options; but where we have advanced
technologically, we have perhaps, compared to these more formal,
more civilized times, devolved in how we as a society hold as
sanctified (or not) our family ties. For Roger Gale, the main
character in this story, the most important thing in his life is
what he leaves behind: his family.
© 2011 The Hollywood Sentinel, Moira Cue.