The Green Bay Tree

by Louis Bromfield

Bromfield creates a sophisticated and complex account of a family and its position in society. John Shane, a mysterious gentleman appears in a midwestern town and builds his estate -- Cypress Hill -- beyond the penetrating eyes of the townspeople who refer to it as Shane's Castle. After his death, his widow Julia, and daughters Lily and Irene, make no effort to quell the speculation of their neighbors. Steel mills eventually surround Shane's Castle and its inhabitants, serving only to enhance the appearance of the Shane clan's separateness.

With his keen storytelling, Bromfield carefully unfolds the stories of a community of people and the Shane women with whom they are fascinated, preoccupied, and even obsessed.

Genres: Fiction, Classics, American

400 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1924

About the author

Louis Bromfield was an American author and conservationist who gained international recognition winning the Pulitzer Prize and pioneering innovative scientific farming concepts.

Bromfield studied agriculture at Cornell University from 1914 to 1916,[1] but transferred to Columbia University to study journalism. While at Columbia University, Louis Bromfield was initiated into the fraternal organization Phi Delta Theta. His time at Columbia would be short lived and he left after less than a year to go to war. After serving with the American Field Service in World War I and being awarded the Croix de Guerre and the Legion of Honor, he returned to New York City and found work as a reporter. In 1924, his first novel, The Green Bay Tree, won instant acclaim. He won the 1927 Pulitzer Prize for best novel for Early Autumn. All of his 30 books were best-sellers, and many, such as The Rains Came and Mrs. Parkington, were made into successful motion pictures.

photograph by: Carl Van Vechten

Reviews

[Ayse_ · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was an interesting book to read about an era when US was evolving in and defining capitalism. It is the first book of Bromfield, immediately making him famous and successful. Published in 1924, it is still an amazingly captivating read. My copy is a secondhand book published in 1926, and was a pleasure to read.

In the book, the story of a wealthy and nonconformist family is depicted; mainly through stories of a matriarch, her two daughters and niece; these women were portrayed as very distinctly polarized characters. Around them is the community of a town; bureaucrats, workers, gossipers and immigrants. Parts of the story involve Paris, where the writer carefully transports the readers back and forth successfully.

On a few occasions, the dose of romantic gestures may exceed one`s comprehension capacity, however this is an enjoyable read.

[Linda · Rating 4 out of 5]

A great novel, and it has inspired me to create a new bookshelf! (Undiscovered Gems)
Who is Louis Bromfield, right? Well, he won the Pulitzer for his 1926 novel Early Autumn (there I go again, eh?), but before reading that prize winner I "have to" read his two previous novels, which he envisioned as a kind of thematic continuing train of thought series, if not exactly sequels. The first book was this one, The Green Bay Tree, and I think it's wonderful.

When you're plunged into a turn-of-the-century garden party opening scene, you might have certain ideas about the white privilege you're about to encounter. But as you turn the pages, you'll find that authors from the 1910s and 1920s often scrawled some downright insightful stuff, and Bromfield mixes herein mill worker uprisings, labor unions, politicians, the 'Great' War, the choices available to women, the notion of progress, the pillaging of Earth and even human towns to make more THINGS with more chemicals ... yet at NO time will you think you're reading a "political" novel. You're reading about the human condition, and he details it nicely, like a Virginia Woolf without the stream of consciousness and experimental stuff.

So by the time we get to France and a soldier's musing that "The sooner we are all killed off the better. The animals could manage this world better than we have done" I am long since ALL IN.

YES, he wrote that line, like he's my 1920s soulmate or something.

By the way, Bromfield also hung out with the big names of his day, both literary (Edith Wharton, Gertrude Stein) and Hollywood (he was part of Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall's wedding), and he was an innovator of pesticide-free organic farming techniques. Cool.

[Renata · Rating 4 out of 5]

I live close to Bromfield's beloved Malabar Farm and felt it was finally time to read his first novel. I read it in 24 hours and found the story and characters mesmerizing. I would highly recommend it. If you read, keep in mind it was written in 1924!

[Louise Casals]

Un roman déconcertant et imparfait mais finalement assez fort. J'ai eu plusieurs fois envie de le laisser tomber avant d'être complètement happée dix pages plus loin. On suit Lily, jeune femme libre et étrangement détachée, originaire d'une ville de pionniers dévorée par le capitalisme et le progrès : la belle maison natale est cernée par des aciéries qui l'avalent peu à peu. En toile de fond, beaucoup de choses : les grèves ouvrières, un amour impossible, une relation conflictuelle avec sa sœur fanatique, une belle relation mère-fille, une vie à Paris, la guerre de 14-18... Dommage que tout soit seulement effleuré, l'action comme les relations entre les personnages semblent chaque fois rapidement évoquées avant de passer à autre chose. On reste sur sa faim mais c'est malgré tout un beau portrait de femme et une réflexion amère sur le progrès et l'avidité des hommes, avec de beaux passages mélancoliques.

[Arthur Pierce · Rating 4 out of 5]

Louis Bromfield's first novel comes across as a book by someone with a great deal of confidence in his own ability to tell a story. It reminded me somewhat of Booth Tarkington's THE MAGNIFICENT AMBERSONS at first, set, as it is, in a mill town whose industry has led to a decay of any physical beauty the city once possessed. About three-quarters through the focus moved to the heroine and her life in France, and the tone momentary changes and, to my mind, some of the momentum is lost. But the final chapters are moving and the book ends strongly.

[Peggy · Rating 3 out of 5]

I’m not sure what I was expecting from this book, urged upon me by a friend, but a novel by a lesser Henry James was not it. However, that’s what this is. It follows the fortunes and misfortunes of Lily Shane, a young woman born into small-town wealth and a dysfunctional family (understatement) who moves on to a charming if boring life in Paris, survives WWI (and is awarded the Croix de Guerre which I thought a bit of a stretch).
It’s well-done and absorbing but he’s no Henry James. However, since I didn’t even know Bromfield wrote novels (I thought of him as a botanist) I was pleasantly surprised. Not a waste of time at all.

[Janie · Rating 3 out of 5]

After visiting his Malabar Farm in Ohio last year, I decided to give Louis Bromfield books a try. Not disappointed. A very enjoyable story, very entertaining. A story of the times and viewpoints of those living in that period. Looked up several new words in regards to the Germans and the French life during WWI. Definitely will read other books by this author.

[Andrew · Rating 3 out of 5]

Dense, evocative novel of social change from about the 1880s to the 1910s, focusing particularly on Lily Shane, a wealthy and self-possessed American living in Pennsylvania and Paris. Title is evidently a reference to Psalm 37's depiction of greed and wickedness flourishing.

[Jeanine Malarsky · Rating 5 out of 5]

Another great novel by the Pulitzer Prize winning author, Louis Bromfield. His books are as good today as they were when written. You will never forget the characters nor the setting in this story, set in his hometown, Mansfield, Ohio.

[Stephen · Rating 4 out of 5]

This novel was an unexpected pleasure. I had read it 50+ years ago in high school and decided to re-read it. Loved it! It has so much more meaning to me with the life I've lived.

[Guusje · Rating 4 out of 5]

A friend, knowing I enjoy Sinclair Lewis lent me The Green Bay Tree. It was written in the 1920s so the style seems a bit stilted for todays reader and there are occasional anti Semitic & racist references
sprinkled throughout the book. Bromfield spins a good story with memorable characters and a good story line. Many of the books underlying themes - industrial pollution, corporate greed, the small minded people are sadly still very relevant today.

Bromfield is on of those 1920s authors, along with Edna Ferber, James Boyd, Sinclair Lewis and Bess Aldrich who find themselves swept int the dust heap of literary fiction. It's a pity because they all still have a voice that speaks to today's reader.

[Sharon · Rating 3 out of 5]

I visited Bromfields Malabar Farm and wanted to read one of his books. Quite good and would be an interesting one to discuss in a book club. Would love to know why he wrote as he did.

[JBresson · Rating 4 out of 5]

"Of course it may have been that when they spoke of the War as the Great Purifier, they were thinking of the vast army of the Dead."

[Rachel Willis · Rating 5 out of 5]

Amazing from start to finish.

[Jeff Mayo · Rating 2 out of 5]

A dysfunctional family with class struggles. This kind of period piece just isn’t for me. It had a few interesting moments, but is mostly forgettable.

[Jeanette · Rating 2 out of 5]

The publication of Louis Bromfield's first book in 1924 turned him into a literary celebrity. The book, The Green Bay Tree, was an instant critical and popular success. Bromfield made enough money off that first book to move his family to Paris where he wrote full time and ran in the same circles as other famous Lost Generation writers.
The Green Bay Tree focuses on the lives of 3 women in the Shane family. Widowed matriarch Julia Shane becomes more and more of a recluse the older she gets, never leaving her stately home surrounded by the mills of a booming city.
Her daughter Lily does not want to live the conventional life that society dictates she should and since she has money and independent means sees no reason why she should. She leaves home and establishes a life for herself in Paris.
Younger daughter Irene is devoted to religion and wants nothing more than to become a nun and live a life of seclusion. When her mother forbids her to become a nun she instead devotes her life to helping the poor foreign mill workers in her town.

After visiting Bromfield's home at Malabar Farm in Richland County Ohio and learning all about this once popular author turned farmer who was friends and contemporaries with the likes of Edith Wharton, Ernest Hemingway and F. Scott Fitzgerald, I was more than willing to read some of his books.
Unfortunately, as I told my husband while reading this book, I can see why Bromfield has fallen into obscurity. The Green Bay Tree bored me into a near reading coma.
Bromfield's writing style did not engage me at all and I never managed to care one bit for any of the characters.
I did enjoy this paragraph, which I think sums up fairly well the theme Bromfield was going for.
"Life is hard for our children. It isn't as simple as it was for us. Their grandfathers were pioneers and the same blood runs in their veins, only they haven't a frontier any longer. They stand...these children our ours...with their backs toward this rough-hewn middle west and their faces toward Europe and the East and they belong to neither. They are lost somewhere between."
I think at its heart The Green Bay Tree was a story about the growth of industrialism and it's effects on agriculture and people but it was tied up in the strange narrative of the Shane women. The Shanes home had once been surrounded by meadows and field that had been conquered by John Shane and other pioneers. Now the home was surrounded by a different sort of progress, mills and factories. Old Mrs. Shane is the last hold out, refusing to sell her home to developers.
This book just turned out to be much more of a chore than I thought it would be to read.

There are 3 other books that are interrelated with the Green Bay Tree and for one of them, Early Autumn, Bromfield was awarded the Pulitzer Prize. I guess I am a bit of a glutton for punishment because I will probably at least read Early Autumn one of these days.

[Denis · Rating 4 out of 5]

Another Bromfield's novel that I read a long-time ago, and appreciated a lot at the time. Not sure how I'd feel about it today, especially since I read it in its French translation, but it impressed me well enough so that I remember it quite well, and Bromfield definitely was a great story-teller. Would be interesting to re-read it to have a more mature view of his writing skills.

[Melissa · Rating 3 out of 5]

While it was a little fun to see how this book was interconnected with Early Autumn, I'm cursing my OCD for not letting me return A Bromfield Trilogy to the library without reading all three books.

[Mary Perkins]

Written in the 20s I think, this is an interestingly told story of a town ruined by greed (a steel town), the families who ruined it and the families who tried to save it. Some interesting information about France during WW I and life in Paris as well.

[Clara · Rating 2 out of 5]

I want it to be more than a book about stereotypically oversexed/undersexed sisters in a steel mill, but I don't think it is. Had to return it after 3 renewals and a fifty cent fine.

[Edward]

Chronicles Summer School of the Midwest.

[sarah]

I got through the first few chapters last year. It seems like a good story, just not real captivating. I'll finish it some day.

[Ceejay]

Not my cup of tea.