By Love Possessed (novel)
First edition
|
|
| Author | James Gould Cozzens |
|---|---|
| Cover artist | Johannes Troyer |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Publisher | Harcourt Brace and Company |
|
Publication date
|
1957 |
| Media type | |
| Pages | 570 |
By Love Possessed is a novel written by James Gould Cozzens in the middle 1950s. It was published on August 26, 1957, by Harcourt Brace and Company, and became a critically acclaimed best-seller. In 1960, it was awarded the William Dean Howells Medal, an award given every five years to the best novel of the previous five years.
The novel was turned into a feature film in which Lana Turner co-starred.
By Love Possessed was one of Cozzens's "professional novels," whose stories presented fully developed characters and placed a special emphasis on the details of their work.
Arthur Winner Jr., an attorney in a small but unnamed American town in a time described as being roughly contemporary, is followed, in the novel, through 49 hours of his life. This is done with flashbacks to prior events that tell us more about Arthur, his acquaintances, and his community. Many of the more significant characters, including Arthur Winner Sr., the protagonist's father, are dead at the time of the novel and are only seen in these flashbacks.
Arthur Jr. is a partner in the small law firm which his father founded in partnership with Noah Tuttle. As a young man, Arthur married Noah's daughter, Hope; they had three children, two sons and a daughter. Hope had died after giving birth to their daughter. Arthur is now married to a younger woman named Clarissa, who had been his daughter's tennis coach. The law practice currently consists of Arthur, Noah, and another man named Julius Penrose. It is said that Arthur had a brief but intense affair with Marjorie Penrose, Julius' wife.
Two cases preoccupy Arthur during the course of the novel. The first concerns the probate of the estate of Michael McCarthy; the second is the arrest of Ralph Detweiler for rape. He is also called on to deal with a new pastor in the Episcopal Church, who is asking him to take a role in the leadership of the parish. He also meets with one of Marjorie's friends, a woman who wants to discuss converting to Catholicism.
Many years ago, a trolley line had been built in the town, and Noah Tuttle had encouraged such clients as Michael McCarthy to invest in it. The trolley company went bankrupt, however, due to the rise of the automobile. Noah handled the bankruptcy case and, to the amazement of all, managed to return some money to the investors. The novel, however, begins to hint at a darker side to Noah's brilliance. He ridicules an elderly woman for wanting to move some of her funds from bonds into stocks. He bristles at the suggestion that the endowment of the parish could be transferred to management by the dioceses. During a hearing which Arthur supervises, Noah has an outburst when questioned about the assets of the McCarthy estate.
...
Wikipedia