#1962 Club: Portrait in Brownstone by Louis Auchincloss

Everything in New York reminded one of the prevalent dust to which, almost immediately, it seemed, one was condemned to return. If one didn’t seize that day, a contractor would.

Linn Tremain, who as a young man, had gone to Florence to get an education in art, made an Italian woman his mistress and finally married her when she gave him a son after a daughter, returns home to the USA with his two children after the death of his wife. Returning to New York, he increased the fortunes of his family which traded in stocks and bonds. He also fell in love with Dagmar Denison of Brooklyn and married her. Only Dagmar who had kept house for her widowed father and brought up her younger siblings was so sorrowful at leaving her family behind that Linn who wanted to see her happy at any cost gradually brought her entire family over. The children of Dagmar’s brothers and sister grew up together.

The novel opens in 1950 with Ida Hartley – who was once Ida Denison, the daughter of Dagmar’s sister Lucy – receiving the news that her cousin Geraldine Brevoort had committed suicide. In her last days, Geraldine, had become an overweight soak, lonely and embittered. In her young days, Geraldine had been the beauty of the extended family with Ida being both resentful and in awe of her. Now as she looks at Geraldine’s corpse, Ida starts reminiscing about her growing up years especially as regards to Derrick, a young ambitious man who had attached himself to the business mogul Linn. Derrick had paid attention to Ida and everybody had thought them to be a good match. However, the moment Derrick saw Geraldine (who had been away while he was courting Ida), he fell violently in love with her and started pursuing her. The Denisons put their foot down. The upstart might be good for Ida but not for the darling of the clan. Meanwhile, Geraldine too while attracted towards Derrick feels that she would be injuring Ida if she encouraged Derrick all the more and so rejects his proposal. An embittered Derrick returns to Ida who of course wants nothing to do with him now but the Denisons want her to forgive Derrick his slight aberration…

The book starts out wonderfully well. The cousins growing up in the early part of the twentieth century with their fights and jealousies, affections and regards make for a riveting read. It is when the focus shifts to Ida’s children: Dorcas (for some reason, portrayed pretty negatively by the author despite the fact that her taking up a job in the publishing house was pretty well done) and Hugo (treated with kid gloves despite his namby-pambiness as regards one issue which left me disgusted) – that the novel loses much of its steam and becomes tiresome. I wish the author had just stuck to the cousins and especially the triangle of Ida-Derrick-Geraldine (for whom I felt most sorry and who was my favourite and not only because she was in the habit of reading a mystery before going off to sleep:) which gave the book a special vigour. Despite the high praise:

this inter-generational saga proved once again that me and The New York Times Bestseller List do not gel.

*

First Line: I had even reached the point of wondering if Geraldine Brevoort’s suicide, so long dreaded, might not prove in the event a relief, but like everything else about Geraldine, when it came, it came with a nasty twist.

Publication Details: 1962. NY: Dell, 1963

Dedication: For Blake and Sheila Lawrence, with all my love and thanks for the long summer visits to Lake Champlain where this story was conceived and much of it was written.

Pages: 319