Pursuit Of The Prodigal

PURSUIT OF THE PRODIGAL 

by Louis Auchincloss

 

Nomination: National Book Finalist 1960

 

Date Read: June 30, 2021

 

This being my first novel by Auchincloss, I found this to be intelligent pulp fiction – a perfect book to read on vacation. As I’m in Mexico right now, all the stars aligned for a juicy experience.

 

Reese Parmelee is a well-bred, well-educated, upper-class white dude with a whole lot of angst. He is determined to live his life by a rigid set of morals (more power to him) than the upper-crust circle he is surrounded by is committed to. He wearies of everyone around him clinging to status and money and he desperately wants something more from life than the life he has created can provide.

 

Reese’s belief that Esther, Reese’s first wife, is trying to trap him in a life of domesticity is a lazy argument at best. He didn’t need to propose or go through with the marriage or impregnate her. He made all those choices on his own. Acting shocked that he ended up with the vanilla life of the white, upper-class male is a difficult pill to swallow and gathers little sympathy from me. He knew what he was doing the whole time. What he didn’t know was how much he would resent Esther and himself once he got there.

 

So what is a man to do? He scraps his entire life, marriage, children, career and fortune to start over and re-create his life in a manner that he can be proud of. Yet, how different does it turn out to be in the end? Not that different really. His second marriage to Rosina ends up looking a lot like his first when she interferes in Reese’s career to cling to a life she has become accustomed to.

 

And Reese shilling as an attorney for the wealthy doesn’t seem that different considering the shenanigans that Amos, the new firm’s owner, is up to with a wealthy widow.

 

All in all, this begs the question of what kind of life is available to someone with Reese’s intelligence, handsomeness and privilege. Turns out, that each iteration is pretty vanilla. But at least he is able to feed his family. Bombs aren’t detonating outside his front door. He and his loved ones are healthy and none of these things is appreciated by the indomitable Reese.

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