Wickford Point

First published in the US in 1939, public domain. This work presents a touching evocation of an unorthodox New England aristocratic family, extremely proud of their social status but penniless. On the heels of The Late George Apley, the novel for which he was awarded the Pulitzer Prize in 1939, John P. Marquand turned his gently satiric gaze on his own profession- the writing life- in this delectable portrait of a stagnant yet distinguished literary family in early 20th-century Boston. Jim is the only member of the extended Brill family at Wickford Point ever to have any money in his pocket. The rest of the Brills siphon gas from his car and overdraw their accounts with the cheerful abandon of those who have always been taken care of. In New England the Brills are cultural and literary royalty with an intellectual lineage that hasn't so much been inherited by the younger generation as it has fed an attenuated languor. The Brills are content to live off the implications of their name alone. And even as Jim laughs at his eccentric cousins, he cannot help being drawn back to Wickford Point, home to a gentle northern air that fills him with an inexorable sadness, but a place to which, ultimately, he belongs.