Portrait in Brownstone

by Louis Auchincloss

Book Overview

This is the story of Ida Denison, wife of a powerful New York financier, and her struggles for happiness and strength in the old family brownstone amid parents, children and husbnd throughout a long,... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 9997406591
• ISBN13: 9789997406590
• Release Date: June 1962
• Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Co
• Weight: 0.82 lbs.

Customer Reviews

Doll Collector

The brisk pace of the book is ideal for the subject matter. Geraldine Brevoort's suicide had a nasty twist. Ida Trask Hartley, her cousin, is married to Derrick and has a son, Hugo, and a daughter, Dorcas. Geraldine falls eight stories from a hotel window. She collected dolls. Ida learns of an affair between Geraldine and her husband. Before Ida's marriage to Derrick, he had been interested in Geraldine. He continued to pursue Geraldine even after he learned that she was just aboutto be engaged to marry Talbot Keating. Derrick was beholden to the family of Ida and Geraldine because he had been given a job by their uncle in his investment firm. Derrick had a premonition that his cause was hopeless. He felt that the family operated on the moral principles of children's books. Ida's dying father tells her that she can be a leader and that he is afraid she will just slide into something. Derrick has secured the love and affection and respect of the whole family even though he lost his head over Geraldine. Ida is urged to consider his marriage proposal. Ida does love Derrick and she suits him. Later, Derrick is successful in business and feels free to drop the name of Ida's uncle from the title of the firm. This fills Ida with chagrin. Eventually the Hartleys divide into rival pairs of mother and son, father and daughter. Dorcas resembles Derrick and Hugo has a razor-sharp wit. Dorcas marries a publisher first, and then a member of her father's firm. Her first husband tells her that her father is a tyrant. Geraldine and her second husband, Freddy Brevoort, live in France for a decade. France is a haven for irregulars. After Freddy dies she stays with Ida and Derrick and later moves to an apartment subsidized by Derrick. In the first year of managing her money he is able to double the funds. Derrick is not romantic, he is calculating. In childhood Dorcas adores her father, but later becomes disillusioned and pities her mother. The interlocking family and business interests are described interestingly. Edith Wharton-like old New York is a cold and hard place.

A consistently entertaining novelist tells family epic

Again, Auchincloss portrays upperclass New York patrician society, here with three generations off businessmen and their wives/lovers. The main character emerges as a compelling matriarch finally and satisfyingly triumphant after years of suppression and constriction. Well-told tale of a culture, a family, and a woman.