The West Wind

by Faith Baldwin

When happily married Davy commits a meaningless and thoughtless indiscretion, it changes things betweem him and his wife Meg and they must come to terms with their altered relationship

314 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1962

About the author

Faith Baldwin attended private academies and finishing schools, and in 1914-16 she lived in Dresden, Germany. She married Hugh H. Cuthrell in 1920, and the next year she published her first novel, Mavis of Green Hill. Although she often claimed she did not care for authorship, her steady stream of books belies that claim; over the next 56 years she published more than 85 books, more than 60 of them novels with such titles as Those Difficult Years (1925), The Office Wife (1930), Babs and Mary Lou (1931), District Nurse (1932), Manhattan Nights (1937), and He Married a Doctor (1944). Her last completed novel, Adam's Eden, appeared in 1977.

Typically, a Faith Baldwin book presents a highly simplified version of life among the wealthy. No matter what the difficulties, honour and goodness triumph, and hero and heroine are united. Evil, depravity, poverty, and sex found no place in her work, which she explicitly intended for the housewife and the working girl. The popularity of her writing was enormous. In 1936, in the midst of the Great Depression, she published five novels in magazine serial form and three earlier serials in volume form and saw four of her works made into motion pictures, for an income that year in excess of $315,000. She also wrote innumerable stories, articles, and newspaper columns, no less ephemeral than the novels.

Reviews

[Vanessa · Rating 3 out of 5]

2.5 stars so round up.

Davy had a one-night stand w/ OW. All he really knew about her was her name or at least the name she gave him. He went home to his wife of 14 years, Meg. Davy couldn’t handle the guilt of that one night and he had to share that burden w/ his wife. So he did. She can’t handle it either and she claims she forgives him, but he wants her to forget too. Even Meg’s sister tells her to forgive and forget, but she can’t, she can’t forget his betrayal even though she forgives regularly. Meg pulls away from him emotionally, spiritually and even physically somewhat and Davy can’t handle this pulling away. He feels it should be done and over with and doesn’t like that his wife feels suspicious of him still. He doesn’t like the repercussions for his stupid, thoughtless mistake. Davy is then at a low point in his marriage and starts to develop a relationship/friendship w/ a mutual friend – who is friends w/ Meg too. (THIS IS NOT THE OW HE HAD THE ONE NIGHT STAND W/) Eventually thinking he is in love w/ Rhoda, the mutual friend, but denying it to Meg. Rhoda is pretty savvy and wants to be friends w/ both Davy and Meg she does not want to jeopardize that relationship.

Davy is feeling lonely in his marriage and feels he can’t go on like this, he wishes that he had never told his wife. He had claimed it meant nothing, but if it meant nothing then why did he share it w/ Meg?

The cheating was at the beginning of the story. So the rest of the story dealt w/ the fallout of his actions and how the characters live after that. It is an older story and really there isn’t much in the way of sex scenes. If you blink you will miss it, as the saying goes. The h/H even had twin beds! The story isn’t bad but it was slow moving w/ a LOT of monologue and character development as they work through their issues.

I did like some of what Rhoda said about forgiving and remembering; that way it isn’t driven into the subconscious where it will stay and fester. “But to look, even regularly, upon what you remember and KNOW you’ve forgiven is achievement.”

[Ceejay · Rating 4 out of 5]

This novel was written over fifty years ago, but it still is amazingly relavant. This is an adult book. It doesn't contain sex, or foul language. It's an adult book because it centers on a marriage that is rocked to its very foundation because of an act of adultry. The reader learns of the reactions of both the husband and the wife. We follow their actions and interactions until we reach an adult conclusion. When I was in elementary school my parent's marriage was torn by my father's unfaithfulness. Now, all these years later, I can see how it must have been for them. Back in those days, parents made believe that nothing happened. Faith Baldwin wrote a great novel, not about being in love, but about what love is.