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I enjoy turn-of-the-twentieth century fiction, and I don't mean the great literature of the period. I like learning indirectly about manners and morals as well as the daily routine of the time within a nice story; I also like what it tells me about the people who read it for enjoyment. Unfortunately, this book was an exception. It was dreadful. I won't rehash fantasyfan's cogent points, but I can't resist mentioning the essential preposterousness of it, from the very beginning, where the anonymous conduit of funds to Polly just happened to be in the same hospital ward, in Chicago! half a continent away, as the one person who could pull off an impersonation. And just how did Izard locate his conduit, anyway?
Dr. Izard did recall to me, perversely, the book club selection of last December, Ethan Frome. Similar in setting, time period and even to an extent in theme, about love devastated in violence--except that Wharton, in her economy of language and deft handling of those themes, wrote a great novel.
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