Hudson River Bracketed
Edith Wharton
Paperback
(Independently published, Feb. 10, 2020)
Hudson River Bracketed tells a fascinating tale set in the 1920s. It features two intelligent, sensitive protagonists, Vance Weston and Halo Spear, both of whom love literature and, despite unhappy marriages to others, eventually come together. This is no sentimental novel, however, with the lovers overcoming all odds to marry and have children. Vance Weston arrives in New York from Euphoria, Illinois, where he had been disillusioned by witnessing his grandfather make love to Vance's girlfriend, Floss Delaney. Once in Paul's Landing along the Hudson River where he stays with distant cousins, Vance dallies with two women, `Smeralda and Laura Lou Tracy, whom he marries. He also falls in love with Halo Spear, a literary young woman from a distinguished family who shares with him a love of language. Halo marries the wealthy Lewis Tarrant partly to help her genteel but impoverished parents. As Vance struggles to become a novelist--he receives praise for the novel he writes on Halo's relative, Elinor Lorburn--he and Laura Lou live in abject poverty and she grows ill and dies. Halo, who introduces Vance to classical literature and encourages him to write, is unhappy with Tarrant. The novel ends with Vance and Halo about to embark on a life together.