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After George Apley passes away, his son calls upon a family friend and writer, Mr Willing, to look through his father's letters and compile a book that will tell the whole truth about George Apley's life and times. As the letters are read, we see that George Apley was a product of that particular time in the United States, most specifically Boston Society during the period between the Civil War and the beginning of the Great Depression. To Apley, his family and name was of the utmost importance, as it had been to all the preceding members of his family. The letters follow George's life from his earliest years, to the time when as a young man George had foolishly promised himself in marriage to a completely inappropriate young woman. Although she had been decent, lovely, educated, and by all reports, of excellent character, she had been born to a lower class family. George's infatuation with her nearly brought about a terrible scandal that might have ruined his life if his family had not hurried him into a tour of Europe with his uncle, aunt, and female cousin who also had forged a regretful liaison with a wealthy but less than upper class young man. The letters then show us George's life as a married man, as a member in good standing of the industrial leadership of that WASP hierarchy in US Society of that time period, and his relationship with his modern children. This book, published in 1937 and written by John Marquand received a Pulitzer Prize. As a citizen of the 21st century, I had torn feelings towards this book. It's well written and Marquand manages to make George and his fellow Bostonians realistic and understandable when such characters could easily have been painted with a broad brush as caricatures. They stand for bigotry and selfish empire building and amassment of wealth that is usually seen as the worst that greed can bring out in men. But Marquand, as Willing, manages to make George and his ilk human, letting us in on his view of his 'high' morality of that time. If George could have dreamed of how the world has changed, of how equality and civil rights have become the standard of our modern society, and that we now look at men like him - with his easy bigotry and self importance - with repugnance, he'd be confused and ultimately horrified. This book is well worth reading, if only for the powerful and true glimpse into a strata of society and a lifestyle no longer held in high regard. But I must confess, I got little enjoyment out of this book. It might be that I am too much a product of growing up with the civil rights movement, but I could never shake a repressed anger and disgust at George and Willing's smug, self-satisfied knowledge that they are the height of civilization and are the best that humankind could offer the world. Their easy bigotry and smugness bothered me too much. If you want to experience a way of life among people of the Bostonian society of the late 1800 and early 1900s THE LATE GEORGE APLEY is a fine choice. Unfortunately, I can't guarantee that you will very be fond of anyone in the book. I wasn't.
Reviewed by Sharon Katz, March 2004
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Contact: Yvonne Klein (ymk@reviewingtheevidence.com)
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