His Family by Ernest Poole, chapters XIX to end

[George]

Please comment here on His Family by Ernest Poole, chapters XIX to end.

[George]

An engaging, interesting read about the Gayle family in the first two decades of the 20th century in New York. It's about widower Roger Gayle and his three daughters, Edith, Deborah and Laura. Edith, stay at home mother, is the eldest and has five children. Deborah is the career women, a school head mistress and organiser and helper of poor family's in tenements, and Laura is the party girl. Three very different siblings who do not get on well with one another. All are fairly strong women. The main themes of the novel are family relationships, the changing roles of women, the effects of World War One on their lives and the economy.

The number of events in the story and the fairly strong characters make this an engaging, satisfying read.

[Irene]

His Family by Ernest Poole
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

In the early 20th century, US society was undergoing great change. From the waves of new immigrants to the growing prosperity of many Americans, from shifting attitudes toward family and sex to the transformative women’s movement, from the specter of the First World War to the rise of a social reform movement, the US was living through a time of rapid alterations. For some, the possibilities were freeing, for others the shifting ground was terrifying. In this family drama of a middle aged widower and his 3 adult daughters, the family dynamics mirror the larger society. When I read award winning books penned a century or more ago, I am confronted by the change in literary taste. Like many novels of this era, I found it to be wordy and the philosophizing rather heavy handed. But I appreciated how Poole captured the dreams and fears of each character and found both value and caution in the preserving of what one knows and embrace of what the future could be. 3.5 stars

[George]

Agreed. I have appreciated reading the early prize winners more from a historical events and way of life back then aspect than for their writing style. I am not expecting to ever read another Poole novel. An author that I am wishing to read more of is Sinclair Lewis. I really enjoyed Babbit and Main Street.

[Irene]

I enjoyed those Lewis novels also.