Stop me if you’ve heard this one: Life was simpler back then. I won’t lie; there are moments when I wish I could revisit the eighties. Comics cost less than a dollar, and sodas were only a quarter. Five bucks could make the weekend fly by. We played in the street, darting aside whenever someone shouted, “Car!” During the summer, I would step outside onto the porch and watch fireflies dance all around. My entire universe was the town I lived in, and everywhere else felt like make believe. Then I take the rose-colored glasses off, and I remember that life wasn’t simpler at all. It just felt like it was.
Every generation faces its fair share of struggles—some complicated, others painful, and the rest are just painfully complicated. In the eighties, one such struggle was the HIV/AIDS epidemic, which destroyed lives and exposed deep-seated prejudices. The LGBTQIA+ community was hit hard by the epidemic as they fought (and still fight) to remind us that they are human. There was the Civil Rights Movement of the sixties. Life during the Great Depression wasn’t simple by any means. I can assure you that every generation has or will have someone wishing for a simpler time. Since that doesn’t exist, then the only thing we can do is move on ahead.
That’s basically the whole premise behind His Family by Ernest Poole. Roger Gale knows that his world is gone now.It belongs to his children and one day his grandchildren will inherit it. Like so many of us, Roger wishes he could turn back time and relive the moments in his life that mattered to him. But that’s not going to happen and he knows it. The only thing he can do is forge on ahead, but the path for him is difficult because it means changing himself. One such example comes to mind is when his daughter Deborah takes him to the school she works. He sees with his own eyes what goes on with the immigrants there and that forces him to let go of his prejudices.
There’s a bit in the story that I rather enjoyed. During his time at the school, Roger befriends a young cripple boy by the name of John. He is taken by John’s willingness to push ahead even through he has a severe disability brought on by Pott’s Disease—also known as spinal tuberculosis. Dr. Baird tells Roger that the boy won’t make it to thirty which upsets him, so Roger decides to adopt the boy and make his final few years enjoyable; even helping him to chase his dream of becoming an architect. Deborah is taken by this kindness.
Baird, who is Deborah’s suitor, is playing a long game in winning her affection. He works his way into Deborah’s causes to help out, and eventually, he earns her love and hand in marriage. However, they decide to wait till after the end of the school year so they could take a long honeymoon. What I found amusing was Roger and Edith’s belief that marriage would be a cure for Deborah. Maybe it would. I don’t know yet. But I found it humorous all the same.
So far, I’ve made it through some chapters. I’m actually up to chapter nineteen as of this writing. In the previous chapters, Roger tries to get his daughter Deborah to slow down because she is working herself too hard. Deborah is quite stubborn believing that she can take on more and more of these challenges. Eventually, Deborah works herself to exhaustion and has a doctor come and check her out. Roger convinces her to take a vacation which she grudgingly accepts. But even while resting, Deborah is hungry to get back to work much to Roger’s annoyance. We also learn that Deborah has a suitor – Allan Baird but Deborah is more in love with her work than with him much to Roger’s disappointment.
The other day, I ran across a Reddit post on one user’s journey through the Pulitzers. He stated that he had read His Family by Ernest Poole and was amazed at how terrible the writing is. I kind of wrestled with that a little bit. I mean, yeah, I see His Family as a 20th Century family sitcom, but I wouldn’t say the writing was that bad – just outdated. That alone only goes to prove my point that stories can age in a lot of different ways.
One of the users had said that it was likely that the committee gave Poole the award for his previous work The Harbor, which critics hailed as a masterpiece. Some have made similar arguments about Sinclair Lewis’ win for Arrowsmith that they awarded him the prize for his earlier work Main Street instead of Arrowsmith. I’ve learned that the committee can be a little weird sometimes when choosing winners, which in my eyes gives them some character.
Well, I think I rambled on long enough. More to come.
