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Title details for A Son at the Front by Edith Wharton - Available

A Son at the Front

by Edith Wharton
Richard Poe
Audiobook
1 of 1 copy available
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1 of 1 copy available

Wharton's antiwar masterpiece probes the devastation of World War I on the home front.

Inspired by a young man Edith Wharton met during her war relief work in France, A Son at the Front opens in Paris on July 30, 1914, as Europe totters on the brink of war. Expatriate American painter John Campton—whose only son, George, having been born in Paris, must report for duty in the French army—struggles to keep his son away from the front while grappling with the moral implications of his actions.

Interweaving her own experiences of the Great War with themes of parental and filial love, art and self-sacrifice, national loyalties and class privilege, A Son at the Front is a poignant meditation on art and possession, fidelity and responsibility in which Wharton tells an intimate and captivating story of war behind the lines.

  • Creators

  • Publisher

  • Release date

    May 14, 2019

  • Formats

    • OverDrive Listen audiobook

      • ISBN: 9781982673376
      • File size: 314586 KB
      • Duration: 10:55:23

  • Languages

    • English

  • Reviews

    • AudioFile Magazine
      Richard Poe articulately narrates a moving story of parents struggling to deal with their son's departure for WWI. The novel focuses on middle-aged American painter John Campton and his former wife, Julia Brant, who come together when their son, George, is drafted into the French army. Poe portrays Campton as a gruff, stubborn artist; this overarching characterization nicely contrasts with the moments when his intense emotion for his son breaks through. Poe's portrayal of young George in a youthful, cheerful cadence also provides contrast. Wharton's story artfully puts the listener in Campton's shoes, and Poe's attentive narration and faithful vocalizations make this audiobook an absorbing listening experience. D.M.W. © AudioFile 2019, Portland, Maine
    • Publisher's Weekly

      September 4, 1995
      Largely criticized or ignored by a war-weary public when it was originally published in 1922, A Son at the Front is an extraordinarily poignant novel chronicling the effects of WWI on painter John Campton and his only child, George. Because his American parents were visiting France at the time of his birth, George is called to duty in the French army. Campton, his ex-wife, Julia Brant, and her husband, wealthy banker Anderson Brant, immediately butt heads over how to keep George safely at a desk job. Fate intervenes in the person of George himself, who transfers to an infantry regiment--to the horror of Julia and the secret admiration of Brant and Campton. As the war rages on, Campton learns not only the value of his son, but empathy and sensitivity: ``never before, at least not consciously, he thought of himself and the few beings he cared for as part of a greater whole.... But the last four months had shown him man as a defenceless animal.... That was what war did; that was why those who best understood it in all its farthest-reaching abomination willingly gave their lives to put an end to it.'' Wharton movingly portrays those left behind during war--not the wives and children but the devastated parents, who are forced to go on living at the cost of their own flesh and blood. Heartrending, tragic, powerful, this is not to be missed.

Formats

  • OverDrive Listen audiobook

subjects

Languages

  • English

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