Synopsis
Nick Lansing and Susy Branch are young, attractive but impoverished New Yorkers. They are in love and decide to marry, but realise their chances of happiness are slim without the wealth and society that their more privileged friends take for granted. Nick and Susy agree to separate when either encounters a more eligible proposition. However, as they honeymoon in friends' lavish houses, from a villa on Lake Como to a Venetian palace, jealous passions and troubled consciences cause the idyll to crumble.
Library Journal
Contrary to the previously reviewed abridged recording (Audio Reviews, LJ 2/1/95), Anna Fields reads this edition with precision. The novel's premise is simple: a man and a woman who are financially strapped decide to marry to remain in the high society circles to which they have become accustomed. They will use their wedding gifts to better position one another's opportunity to remarry for money. The dilemma, of course, comes when they discover separately that their love for each other is far greater than the false, pretentious, and self-indulgent lives they are seeking. Wharton strikes a balance between the superficial and the genuine, and between dependency and freedom that allows the reader to observe the foibles and follies of life and learn from them. Fields has also recorded A Feast of Words: The Triumph of Edith Wharton (see Audio Reviews, LJ 2/15/98). Recommended for all audio collections.Kristen M.