Every project comes with its fair share of obstacles, and mine began with deciding which Pulitzer Prize-winning novel I was going tostart with. It’s silly to admit, but that intimidated me. I felt like I needed some kind of specialized knowledge—the literary equivalent of knowing the difference between a salad fork and a dessert fork. Realizing I was overcomplicating things, I decided to start at the beginning, so I chose the first novel to ever win the Pulitzer Prize: His Family by Ernest Poole.
After making my choice, I decided to look up Ernest Poole. I had never heard of him before, which surprised me given that he was the first recipient of a prestigious award. A Google search revealed that Poole was a journalist who covered topics like labor and social inequality – stuff that some would call “woke.” He branched out as a novelist and gained acclaim for his novel The Harbor. In 1917, he published His Family and a year later it would receive the first Pulitzer Prize. Poole was popular during his time but that fame vanished just after his death. Poole today is nothing more than a footnote.
I was saddened by that. Hemingway had said, “Every man has two deaths, when he is buried in the ground and the last time someone says his name.” I think it is safe to say that Poole had experienced both. But that’s all changed with digital and on-demand publishing. Still, it feels like he should be better remembered. I mean, he was the first recipient of the Pulitzer Prize, but he also lived a very fascinating life that was filled with adventure. Case in point – he went to Russia to cover the 1917 Revolution. During World War 1, Poole covered the war from the German perspective. He was in the thick of important moments, which I find rather inspiring.
I got to reading His Family after I had downloaded it from Amazon. I could have spent a few bucks and got a physical copy through on-demand publishing. But I wasn’t feeling that given that I had some bad experiences with that before, so I thought I would play it safe and just get a digital copy. What could I say? A big book for ninety-nine cents is a heck of a deal.
I was immediately blown away by the simplicity of Poole’s style. A long time ago, books were very florid and wordy. Some of them are still that way today but not as bad as it was yesterday. So it was a breath of fresh air to read something that was direct and to the point. The story (and I should say some spoilers are dead ahead) centers around a sixty year old widower by the name of Roger Gale. Before her death, Gale’s wife Judith had made him promise that he would better connect with their three daughters – Edith, Deborah, and Laura. Roger tries to do this amidst a backdrop of a rapidly changing New York City.
I rather liked Roger because I found him somewhat relatable. At sixty years of age, you’re pretty much set in your ways. Roger watches New York become an alien like landscape that he can barely understand or even connect with. But he tries to because he knows that New York City belongs to the younger generation – namely his three daughters. If he is to connect with them and build long lasting relationship then he needs to understand their world as best he can.
The impression that I had was that he favored Edith (his eldest daughter) the most because she reminded him a great deal of his late wife Judith. She doesn’t live with him at the house but instead lives with her husband and four children. Edith’s husband Bruce is the bread winner, but Edith is the one that wears the pants in the family. Just read the first chapter and you’ll see what I mean. Deborah is the middle child and is probably the one that Roger least understands. She’s very passionate about social causes, and I get the feeling that she might be a firebrand. She lives at the family home with Roger. The youngest daughter is Laura. She’s young and trying to find herself in a new century, but she’s also a hopeless romantic. Like Deborah, Laura lives at the family home.
It goes without saying that making the first chapter of your book interesting is crucial. If it isn’t then your readers won’t be inspired to read chapter 2, and then 3, and then so on and so forth. The first chapter of His Family grabbed a hold of me through sheer simplicity. Its nothing but a snap shot of a man’s family life with distinct characters and more. Needless to say, but I’m hooked and will read on.
