In the early summer of 1902, a respected family man is sentenced to death for the murder of his friend, but escapes miraculously. Before solving the mystery, Wilder transports the reader throughout history in a generational struggle of adventure and redemption.
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About the Author
Thornton Wilder (1897–1975) was an accomplished novelist and playwright whose works explore the connection between the commonplace and the cosmic dimensions of human experience. He won the Pulitzer Prize in 1928 for The Bridge of San Luis Rey, the second of his seven novels, and received the Pulitzer Prize in Drama for Our Town in 1938 and The Skin of Our Teeth in 1943. Wilder's hit play The Matchmaker was adapted as the musical Hello, Dolly! His work is widely read and produced around the world to this day, and his screenplay for Alfred Hitchcock's Shadow of a Doubt (1943) remains a classic psycho-thriller. Wilder's many honors include the Gold Medal for Fiction of the American Academy of Arts and Letters and the Presidential Medal of Freedom.
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Customer Reviews
Most helpful customer reviews
Format:Paperback
There is a poor John mine is southern Illinois in Coaltown. The mine mechanic is charged with and convicted of the murder of the general manager. The two leading families in the town had been those of the general manager and the mine mechanic. The better man of the two was the mechanic. He had worked with the manager and had given him credit for things he accomplished.
The mechanic is sentenced to death but escapes through the work of an unknown group of men. One of the daughters decides that in order to carry on she and her family must run a boarding house. At the time people feared being relegated to the poor house.
The hopeful find nourishment in marvels. Eventually John Ashley, the condemned man, makes his way to Chile to work in the copper mines. The root of avarice is the fear of what circumstances might bring. Ashley had tried to live in a manner opposite that of his father who was a miser.
After the crisis and while the boarding house was being started, John Ashley's son Roger, age seventeen, moved to Chicago. In the beginning he was a dishwasher. Quickly he moved through jobs as a hotel clerk and an orderly. Roger met some journalists and resolved to become a newspaper man.
He was starved for food of the spirit. Once he was given a ticket to FIDELIO. After being in Chicago eighteen months he became a reporter. Roger met his sister, the musician of the family, in Chicago. His sister Lily's friend, the Maestro, told Roger that works of art are the only satisfactory productions of civilization.
Roger and his sister hit upon a plan to use their real extravagant middle names and last names in their newspaper work and singing respectively to enable their father to contact them. John Ashley had gone to engineering school in Hoboken. He met his wife Beata Kellerman there. Beata had been formed by her parents' best principles, but her parents did not recognize them. All young people secrete idealism.
In the end the child who started the boarding house and saved the family broke down and ended up in the poor house. Everyone else was successful and the mystery of the murder of the general manager was solved.
Thornton Wilder employs many myths drawn from history of the settlement of the west, including the settlement by unusual religious communities. This work resembles the novels of Willa Cather. It is excellent.
By Schmerguls
Format:Paperback
I read this book because it won the National Book Award for 1968. For much of the time I was reading I thought it inartfully written, the story line awfully contrived, and often boring. But there is a certain power to the story, and it depicts good people--John Ashley, above all--who should be admired. I guess I am glad I read this book, but I can't say I think it is felicitously written. I concluded the award of the National Book Award to this book was more to honor an old and famous writer than because the book is a great book.
By A Customer
Format:Paperback
For me this book began with great promise. Engrossing and mysterious plot, interesting characters, incredibly well written. Suddenly, the main character in whom the author has invested so much of the story disappears completely and subplots eclipse the main plot. To make matters worse the character development becomes predictable and the characters themselves are not very interesting. What happened to the last half of this book?
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