Some Take a Lover

(no dust jacket, although the front panel of the original dj is affixed to the front cover, and the front jacket flap affixed to the front pastedown) [ex-rental library book, stamped as such ("Variety Circulating Library") on front and rear endpapers, title page, and a couple of text pages; ffep removed with consequent weakening of front hinge, externally worn but not too extremely, considering]. Novel about the Singleton family, a clan of rich aristocrats (are there any other kind) who fashion themselves as "experimenters in modern marriage, who consider breaking the seventh commandment to be the first commandment of 'civilized marriage'." (I'll save you the trouble of looking it up: in this context, that's the one about not committing adultery, although depending on which sort of Christian you happen to be, sometimes it's the one about not stealing.) Anyway, here's how that goes in this book: "Husbands are supposed to smile when they see their wives in other men's arms; wives are supposed to find themselves lovers when they see their husbands in other women's rooms. The civilized way!" This is classic Macaulay pop-fiction territory, i.e. spinning a plot around some "scandalous" modern fad, and also has an interesting backstory: "Ann Du Pre" was the pseudonym of radical/Communist writer Grace Lumpkin, who published at least three novels under the Du Pre name during the same period of time she was turning out serious, respected prole fiction such as "To Make My Bread" (1932) and "A Sign for Cain" (1935). And it gets even MORE interesting when you contemplate the fact that Du Pre/Lumpkin herself was involved in some unorthodox semi-monogamous cohabitation situations during the late 1920s and 1930s.

Product Info

Publisher: The Macaulay Company

Year: 1933

Type: Used

Binding: Hardcover

First Edition

Seller Info

ReadInk

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Country: United States