Shadow of a Man

By May Sarton

Book Overview

It is the death of Persis Bradford, Francis's mother, a most unusual woman with an intense feeling for living, that starts the son on his road to maturity. Grief opens his eyes, not only to himself but to Alan Bradford, the stepfather he has always disliked. A summer in Paris is to Francis a journey of the spirit in which he learns, through Solange Bernard, to love and finds through love, how integrate his mixed heritage and how to make use of it. The strange summer, partly idyllic, partly miserable, brings Francis to himself and sends him home to Ann, the young woman whom he has never had the courage to love.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0393300307
• ISBN13: 9780393300307
• Release Date: August 1982
• Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
• Length: 312 Pages
• Weight: 1.75 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.8" x 5.1" x 8.0"

Customer Reviews

A perfect love is founded in despair, (Santayana).

Francis Adams Chabrier was the son of Persis Bradford. Alan Bradford was her second husband. The two men were left to face each other when she died suddenly of a heart attack. Alan, a Chinese scholar, considered that death put a mask on everyone's face. At the first opportunity Francis left to take a walk on the impersonal streets. Persis had been a powerful person. Her first husband had been an aviator and a philosopher. After his death, Francis, age 12, and Persis moved to Mount Vernon Street in Boston. When Alan Bradford saw Persis in his fifties he immediately wanted to marry her. Francis didn't know why Persis had married again. She had made herself into a good research assistant, learning Chinese. Alan's mother believed that the French were unstable volatile people. Francis had dreamed of doing something great in the world so that his mother would be proud of him. Francis told his friend Ann Winthrop that the atmosphere at his house was grisly. Francis wanted his friend Saul Wiseman to return to the house after the funeral. Sometimes a perfectly stupid rage seized him. It was a Unitarian funeral. Saul did go back to the house after it. Francis met Saul at the door and said that it reeked of Boston upstairs in the draw8ng room. The names of the cousins were Dorcas and Lucy Brewster. The discussion centered on subjects of the nature that Papa disliked the death of THE TRANSCRIPT and the "CHRISTIAN SCIENCE MONITOR doesn't quite do." Following drinks a meal settled the clash of cultures and made everyone more sedate and kind. After college, Francis advised the company, he wanted to take a year off and study at the Sorbonne. Saul had the idea that death was a clarification as Francis began using Persis-like charm. To Francis the elegant frame of Boston was a sort of prison. Saul stopped to see Ann Winthrop later. He had not understood the atmosphere at lunch. Alan soothed himself with the notion that the dead do not die. Francis was relieved to learn that Persis had married Alan because he loved her. As with all Sarton novels, this one is highly schematic, which doesn't mean it isn't deeply felt. The plot moves forward swiftly to an encounter between Francis and his mother's dear friend Solange in Paris. Among other things this is a coming-of-age novel with a focus on Francis. He had two wounds, his mother's second marriage and her death, and only the wounded see.