His Family

Roger Gale

The prolific writer, journalist and social reformer Ernest Poole (1880 - 1950) deserves to be remembered as the first recipient of the Pulitzer Prize for the Novel. Poole's 1918 award foreshadows both the strengths and weaknesses of the Pulitzer Prize, which in 1948 was renamed the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction.

On the one hand, many critics argued from the outset that "His Family" did not deserve the Pulitzer Prize but was instead a stand-in for Poole's earlier novel, "The Harbor" (1915), a sharply-written story of social protest and the struggle for unionization. Indeed, "The Harbor" remains in print while "His Family" is available only in offprint editions. On the other hand, "His Family" is a distinctly American novel which offers a careful reflective portrayal of American life and its promise during a pivotal time. By offering an ultimately optimistic vision of American life, "His Family" met a basic purpose of the Pulitzer Prize which many subsequent recipients would share. Poole's "Our Family" merits consideration in its own right rather than as an alleged stand-in for an earlier book.

Set primarily in New York City with scenes as well in rural New Hampshire during 1913 --1916, "His Family" is both a complex novel of a changing America and a character study. The book tells the story of an aging businessman, Roger Gale, as he struggles to come to terms with changes in American culture that are mirrored in his own family. The book has something of the feel of a coming of age novel. Poole suggests that most adults remain virtual children throughout their lives and find wisdom, if at all, only with age, as undoubtedly was the case with the life of his protagonist.

Gale's "family" consists of three daughters, ranging in age from their late 20's to mid-30's. His wife Judith had died at 39 sixteen years before the story begins, leaving Gale to raise his daughters alone through their adolescent years. Just before her death, Judith had enjoined her husband to "live on in our children's lives" to prepare with faith for a reunion of the family in an afterlife. But Judith's death leaves Gale broken and alone and with a loss of any religious faith whatsoever. He throws himself into his business which, with some rough moments, becomes a success. Gale lives in a large old house which he inherited from his wife and which was the home of his daughters. The house is fast becoming an anachronism in an increasingly cluttered New York City. Poole frequently calls Gale an "idealist". Gale broods a great deal. He feels guilty that he does not know his daughters well and was not sufficiently involved in their upbringing.

Gale's three daughters are types as well as individuals who show three different ways of life for women in a changing American culture. Gales' relationship with his middle daughter, Deborah, in her early 30's is the focus of the story. Deborah lives with her father in the old family home. She is unmarried and has been working since her early 20's as a teacher in New York City's tenement schools. Deborah has risen to become a principal and a supervisor of many schools and has become famous in the city for her devotion to bettering the condition of poor struggling immigrants, adults as well as children. Deborah is also a suffragette and becomes increasingly active in social movements as the economy enters a downturn after the beginning of WW I. To get closer to Deborah, Gale accompanies her through her daily rounds and becomes increasingly attuned to the lives of the downtrodden, the poor, and the ill. Poole describes the lives of the city's growing underclass with compassion and power. With his growing sympathy for his daughter's endeavors, Gale remains concerned about her single state. For some years, a physician, Allan Baird, has courted Deborah and has abandoned a lucrative medical practice for the well to do to assist in Deborah's work for the poor. Fearing Deborah will become old and alone and miss her chance for intimacy and happiness, Gale wants her to marry the longsuffering Baird.

Gale's oldest daughter, Edith, is married to a successful workaholic attorney, Bruce, and has five children. Edith has traditional values along the lines of Judith's. She is devoted to her children and his little use for Deborah, her career, and her feminism. Edith spends lavishly on her children until Bruce dies in a freak auto accident. She and her children move in with Gale and Deborah, and family tensions abound.

The youngest daughter Laura exemplifies the changing culture of the age in a way different from Deborah. Laura is free-spirited and sexually liberated. She impulsively marries a successful if rakish young man and travels with him to Europe at the outset of the War. The marriage soon flounders as both Laura and her husband have affairs. When Laura moves back home alone, the family conflicts become intolerable. Deborah works to make the best of the situation and to spare her father, to the extent possible. Laura leaves the home after a bitter quarrel with Edith. She runs off with her paramour even before her divorce and returns to Europe. Laura has a strained reconciliation with Gale at the end of his life.

Gale struggles to understand and become close to his daughters and to overcome his own grief and nostalgia. Although he fails nearly as often as he succeeds, Gale's finest moment comes when he convinces Deborah of the value of Baird's love and of a committed sexual and family life. He persuades his daughter that she can continue with her passion for social uplift and career while having an intimate life of her own. Gale comes down with a fatal illness, but he lives to see Deborah married and through a difficult nearly fatal pregnancy. With his death, Gale comes to understand his own life, "his family" of daughters and their children, and the broader "family" of humanity which has been the focus of Deborah's life. He comes to interpret in his own way his wife's injunction to "live on in our children's lives." Near the end of his life, Gale adopts as his own a motto carved over the door of one of Deborah's schools: "Humanity is still a child. Our parents are all people who have lived upon the earth-our children, all who are to come. And the dawn at last is breaking. The great day has just begun."

Poole's novel includes many evocative passages of a dynamic, changing New York City that reminded me of a much later Pulitzer Prize winner, "Martin Dressler" by Steven Millhauser that is set about fifteen years earlier than "Our Family". The book is slow moving and ponderous in places and tends toward didacticism. The portions of the book describing Gale's relationship with a severely injured young man named John whom he treats as a son are over-sentimentalized. "His Family" still remains thoughtful, serious, and readable. The book effectively portrays social change and its impact on individual lives. In its focus on American life and its potential, "His Family" was a worthy first recipient of the Pulitzer Prize. The book deserves a new, accessible edition.

Robin Friedman

I enjoyed this first Pulitzer Prize winner for novels quite a bit. It's a little old-fashioned for most readers today, but those who want to take a step back in time to see what life was like for a widower with three grown daughters in NYC circa 1911, this is the book for you. The girls are all unique; one a free spirit, one an early feminist and one a traditional mother and wife. Their father deals with them all in his own loving way, it is after all, 'His Family'.

Social commentary in 1st Pulitzer winner

His Family gives us a glimpse into the "state of the union" a century ago. World War I weighed heavily on the mind of the author, and the story grapples with the question of whether in the face of advances in society we are just going to throw it all away on more senseless death and destruction. However, you will not get anything remotely that heavy-handed in the plot or language or tone of the novel. Instead, it is an almost "light" mood as it takes you through the thoughts of this New Yorker watching his three adult daughters embark on their various paths in life. One daughter does the traditional husband/family, one is the activist teacher who puts off settling down, and one is the social butterfly who flirts with danger. Besides getting caught up in the story, and besides the warmth among the characters despite their disagreements and struggles, the book fascinates because these characters are so like us, and yet so different. For example, the activist daughter written today would probably be joining the Peace Corps or maybe running for State Senate, but you have to consider that Ernest Poole was writing when women couldn't even vote. It is also interesting to see what the mighty Pulitzer committee considered worthy of its first Fiction (then called "Novel") award.