(Book for review courtesy of NetGalley)
Lake Union Publishing ~ 26 Mar 2024
I tried to like The Philadelphia Heiress. The plot is in keeping with what I usually read. Helen Montgomery is a Philadelphia socialite who chafes at the constraints of society. Helen wants to be a farmer. Yes you read that right - Helen is socialite who wants to trade designer gowns for overalls. She'd rather squeeze the udders of cows then be squeezed by eligible suitors. Helen wants to make butter and cheese rather than marry and live a boring rich person's life. An interesting premise, sure, but Helen wears designer dresses and attends society functions with barely a fuss.
To save her family from social ruin, Helen agrees to find a beau at her coming out, and marry him before punch and cake are served. She barely dates two suitors before agreeing to marry a man she's talked to a handful of times. I would say that is a ridiculous notion, but women's history has taught us the opposite. The novel tries to tell readers that Helen falls in love with her fiance just in time to say I do. Then comes a marriage that faces the normal first year bumps. But could those bumps have been avoided if Helen had known her fiance for more than a minute?
Helen and her husband Edgar are presented as rebels and thus, a perfect match. Rebellion will be achieved by her butter and cheese making (on the farm attached to her family's estate) and Edgar's eschewing his nepo railroad job and mining his Harvard legacy education for connections to the publishing world to become a "novelist." I say "novelist" in quotes because The Philadelphia Heiress presents Edgar as a cliche of a cliche : the writer who needs to work on his novel, then parties, has an affair, and is a general wastral, then claims all of these things are done in service to the novel that he never actually seems to write. Helen pouts and Edgar storms out, then placates her with jewels and furs - remember she likes overalls, and not fancy clothes because she is not like the other spoiled heiresses.
They vacation in the south of France - as newly weds who want to make it on their own - with noted names of the late 20s. As Edgar is a "novelist" Scott and Zelda show up for no more than an obligatory cameo. The famous people dropped into the narrative only prove that the author can internet search "famous people of the 1920s." Louis Renault shows up. You know, that famous French car guy everyone knows from the 20s - no, NO ONE knows who Louis Renault was. At least the novel got Zelda's interest in studying dance correct. The Philadelphia Heiress is ultimately about spoiled rich white scions of privilege who create their own problems. As Gertrude Stein, who somehow wasn't mentioned, said "there's no there there. The Philadelphia Heiress has no substance and too much stylized style.
