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The Edifice
The Edifice is the first book by an Australian to appear in New Authors Limited. It is set around the shores of Sydney and it has a hero who shapes his life in accordance with a vivid and intensely personal ideal.
But The Edifice is also a story about love. Who exactly does Ross Wilder love? He is a man claimed equally, it seems, by his wife and by the women to whom he owes his reputation. The situation is apparently free from jealousy, and Mrs. Wilder behaves towards the girls she meets in Ross's company as if they were all her personal friends. The narrator, John Farrington, is first drawn towards the Wilders by the quick-moving life they generate around them; but it is not until he returns from a visit to England that he begins to understand them and their daughter Kate, who is inexplicably engaged to a man living on the fringes of the underworld. John himself gets involved with the events which are suddenly set moving and which he feels are beyond the control of either himself or the Wilders.
This story, beautifully told with a deceptive ease of style, touches on questions of love and marriage and family relationships in a way that makes it an impressive contribution to the New Authors list.
But The Edifice is also a story about love. Who exactly does Ross Wilder love? He is a man claimed equally, it seems, by his wife and by the women to whom he owes his reputation. The situation is apparently free from jealousy, and Mrs. Wilder behaves towards the girls she meets in Ross's company as if they were all her personal friends. The narrator, John Farrington, is first drawn towards the Wilders by the quick-moving life they generate around them; but it is not until he returns from a visit to England that he begins to understand them and their daughter Kate, who is inexplicably engaged to a man living on the fringes of the underworld. John himself gets involved with the events which are suddenly set moving and which he feels are beyond the control of either himself or the Wilders.
This story, beautifully told with a deceptive ease of style, touches on questions of love and marriage and family relationships in a way that makes it an impressive contribution to the New Authors list.
191 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1960
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