
Pulitzer Book Club Inclusion Guide

"The Late George Apley"
by John Phillips Marquand
INCLUSION MILESTONES
1938
• Wages & Hours Act creates minimum wage, prohibits child labor, mandates OT pay
• March of Dimes founded
• Benny Goodman plays swing jazz at Carnegie Hall


AUTHOR INSPIRATIONS
Born to blueblood New England family, grew up privileged in Rye, NY, Marquand no longer part of elite when father’s business failed and young John moved in with Massachusetts aunts. Outsider at Harvard where he was a scholarship student snubbed by literary clubs, though was member of Harvard Lampoon staff. Part of military unit sent to Mexican border.
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Featured Reader Wanted!
Featured Reader
– Share your key take-away about inclusion in this book in a sentence or two.
– Write a paragraph or two (up to 250 words) to describe your thoughts on exclusion/inclusion in the book, why you related or did not connect with the book, and why you think reading, inclusion and dialog about inclusion matter.
– Identify the name and website address of a cause you support with an inclusive mission.

Inherited wealth, convention, Boston-centric worldview dictate man’s life/memoir.

Dumped Irish girlfriend rescues very old flame from sting operation/blackmail.

Faux memoir of privileged Bostonian is window into late 19th/early 20th century WASP 1%.

A long 354 pages

You can defy expectations and still do the right thing and be happy.

Unwavering belief that Boston is center of universe and one must seek out Bostonians when out of town/county. Goal to “Save” Boston from change and from people who represent change.
Focus: family legacy, protect generational wealth, live well within means, donate generously, marry peer, go right social events, schools, etc. People not part of the family’s wealthy circle not suitable. People who marry outside class or do something dishonorable not spoken of again.
Perception that “servants” and employees are treated well and fairly -- and lack potential.
Unwavering adherence to convention and conventional thinking. Puritanical values.
Extreme bigotry toward Irish Catholics and Irish politicians as well as racism and antisemitism.
Belief that Germans should have been massively punished at end of WWI.
Women as trophies and man-hunters with very proscribed lifestyle, lacking male freedom.
Women must be decorous. Communal male nude swimming perfectly OK.
Wife gets that it’s good for husband to go birding weekly with his neighbor lady friend.
Relationship with institutionalized sister unexplored.
Son wounded in the Mexican war.
Son and daughter defy convention and marry based on love; parents embrace partners when they identify links between children’s spouses and the family.

Do a camp dinner -- trout, flapjacks, and coffee -- or a hardy birding breakfast -- baked beans, brown bread, and fish balls -- or serve creamed oysters like they do at the Club.

“Some day you will know that there is a beauty of the soul that is more important than worldly beauty.”

Find a cabin, ideally on a secluded private Maine island, where you can canoe, fish, pick berries, chop wood, cut trails, paint, read, and talk about the habits of moose and beaver around the campfire, or be an idler on a bed of balsam boughs. Or go somewhere even more snobby like a private club.

Respond to post-stroke father’s question about how things would have tuned out if he married the Irish girl.
Talk about the major historical events and social shifts that anchor the novel and how they influenced the characters as well as real human beings. Discuss the cycle of WASP male supremacy, bigotry, misogyny, racism, bullying, snobbery, and provincialism in the novel.
What family interactions were especially cringe-worthy? Why? Any parenting actions you admired?
Discuss “you not only marry a wife, you marry the entire family” and “Do not be different from what you are because in the end, you’ll find that you cannot be different.”
Compare the ways men who headed the family viewed, interacted, and helped people outside the family and its circle.
What did schools, clubs and mothers do to and for children and adults? How did religion and politics figure into the novel?
Why was Boston the center of the universe? Why did it need to be saved? Talk about how people responded others in Europe, NYC, and Maine.
Why was time spent with other people fulfilling and/or fun versus not?
What did you make of the allusions to PTSD, mental illness, and depression?
What's responsibility of a wealthy family to their community?

Just go to Boston. The novel reveals nowhere else measures up. Of course spend time on the Harvard campus, Boston Common, and the Public Gardens. Decide whether or not the Charles River Basin was a good idea. Seek out Sargent and Copley portraits of gentlemen in The Museum of Fine Arts and think about what your life would be like if one of them was your father. Bust your way into private clubs. Attend an unreasonable number of unimportant lectures and meetings, or, better still, bicycle to the woods, take a bird walk with a good friend, and chronicle what you see.

The Late George Apley (1947) film was based on the Philip Barry play.

The Unspeakable Gentleman (1922), Lord Timothy Dexter (1925), Do Tell Me, Doctor Johnson (1928), Haven’s End (1933), Ming Yellow (1935), The Unspeakable Gentleman (1922), Lord Timothy Dexter (1925), Do Tell Me, Doctor Johnson (1928), Haven’s End (1933), Ming Yellow (1935), Wickford Point (1939), and H. M. Pulham, Esquire (1941), plus about twenty more novels, including six Mr. Moto detective novels, as well as short stories and a work of non-fiction.