The Mother's Recompense

by Edith Wharton

Book Overview

Kate Clephane has lived in exile in France since leaving her husband and infant daughter. She is being called back to New York by her now adult daughter to attend her daughter's wedding. Complicating... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0684825317
• ISBN13: 9780684825311
• Release Date: October 1996
• Publisher: Scribner Book Company
• Length: 288 Pages
• Weight: 0.55 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.7" x 5.4" x 8.0"

Customer Reviews

NY vs the Riviera

After reading "The Age of Innocence", "The House of Mirth", and "Custom the Country" I thought I'd read the best of Wharton. Not So! Wharton is always exemplary in portraying upper class late 19th century New Yorkers and their staid customs. Some things are de rigueur and others just aren't allowed. Unlike her earlier gilded age settings "Recompense" takes place post World War I and there are cars, easier travel within and without the country, telephones provide easier communication. In her early twenties Kate ran from her rules worshiping husband, leaving behind her three year old daughter. Worse still a society playboy helped her escape and then dumped her and everyone who matters knows about it. She exiles herself to Europe and settles in with other rule breakers. They partially redeem themselves with good works during the war. Time moves on. Divorce is invented! More importantly others from her social set misbehave eclipsing her own scandal. When her husband and then her mother-in-law die Kate's daughter invites her back home to live with her. Kate is surprised at how easily she fits back in, how nonchalantly her old cronies welcome her and mostly how much her daughter cares for her. The one love affair she allowed herself during her exile comes back to haunt her threatening her new life however. Despite this Kate sees vistas of possible happiness, but ultimately she has to decide between speaking the truth and hurting her daughter or keeping secrets that are almost impossible to swallow. Sadly her real choice narrows down to deciding whether she wants to feel alone and alienated in NY or on the Continent. At least this is territory she's already familiar with.

A Mother's Dilemma

Written in 1925, this less well-known novel by Edith Wharton examines a mother's dilemma. Kate Clephane, the heroine of this novel, deserted her wealthy husband and young daughter twenty years before, when she fled the social constraints of her proper home in New York, at the turn of the century. After the end of that affair she seeks to be reunited with her child, but is denied this by her husband and mother in law. Ostracized by friends and family, Kate leads a life of love affairs and social gatherings amid the frivolous expatriate community on the Riviera. One day she receives a telegram from her now grown daughter. Kate's mother-in-law has died and the girl summons her to return to New York in an attempt to rekindle their relationship. Things go well for a while, until Kate discovers that her daughter is planning on marrying Chris one of Kate's near do well former lovers. Kate is repelled by the thought. She wrestles with what she should do. Should she tell her daughter of her former relationship with Chris, putting her relationship with her daughter in jeopardy? Should she attempt to break up the relationship to save her daughter from marrying a man whose character indicates he was not meant to marry? Or should she keep silent and not break her daughter's heart. The reader struggles with Kate over which is the correct decision, as well as what motivates Kate's behavior. Does she want to end the relationship between her daughter and Chris out of jealousy, or perhaps selfishness? I won't reveal her choice. But in the end she forgoes her own happiness in rejecting the hand of a suitor. Why? This is for the reader to decide. There are similaries in plot and style with Henry James' Washington Square, where a father intrudes into the relationship of his shy daughter with a potentially disastrous suitor.

A Fantastic Voyage Across an Hysterical Sea

This novel which has gone undiscovered for many years deserves close scrutiny and ultimately a judgement on the heroine. The introduction invites the author to decide whether the mother is merely hysterical or has real cause for concern. Whatever the outcome it is a difficult and delightful decision to make