Honorable Men

by Louis Auchincloss

Chip Benedict, a rich, successful, socially secure, and handsome man, is haunted by dark guilt and is consequently driven to excel, to conform, and to embrace a righteousness that he fails to perceive as hypocrisy

Genres: Fiction, Novels, Family

278 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1985

About the author

Louis Stanton Auchincloss was an American novelist, historian, and essayist.

Among Auchincloss's best-known books are the multi-generational sagas The House of Five Talents, Portrait in Brownstone, and East Side Story. Other well-known novels include The Rector of Justin, the tale of a renowned headmaster of a school like Groton trying to deal with changing times, and The Embezzler, a look at white-collar crime. Auchincloss is known for his closely observed portraits of old New York and New England society.

Reviews

[Thomasin Propson]

Bless their hearts, Alida and Chip are just not interesting enough to me to read any more than the first 50 pages. I actually had false hope when on page 41 Chip’s story took over from Alida’s (which was dull but normal kind of dull. Getting to know her, you know?) but then Chip is all sorts of weird rich boy with problems with his mother and women and so I say NO MORE of this. (1.5 stars because I like the setting itself, so not a totally wreck. This author has a following for a reason I suppose!)

[Harrison Glaze · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5

[Frances · Rating 2 out of 5]

Horrible people and what was the bottom line? Men win even when they are horrible and women lose? Weird number of name overlaps. Alida, Gayley, Hooper.

[Tim · Rating 3 out of 5]

Been intrigued by him since I read an exchange of letters between him and Gore Vidal in the New Yorker some time ago. Generally regarded as a “novelist of manners”, as his fiction is generally set in a WASPy New York/New England/D.C. milieu. This one covered the life of a scion of a family business from the ’30s through the late ’60s. To us, the lead character is anything but what the title implies, but judging by the standards of his class he’s nothing else. Exceedingly well written, if ultimately slight.

[Phyllis · Rating 3 out of 5]

Another from the New York lawyer/author with his knowledge of the upper class of New York. This time it's about a man who is congenial on the surface but has no sense of purpose, just coasting through life albeit using his many talents to amass even more money for his family, to whom he pays little attention. The author has a keen sense of men's and women's thoughts about themselves, as usual.