At Fault

by Kate Chopin, Bernard Koloski (Introduction and Notes)

Widowed at thirty, beautiful, resourceful Therese Lafirme is left alone to run her Louisiana plantation. When Therese falls in love with David Hosmer, a divorced businessman, her strong moral and religious convictions make it impossible for her to accept his marriage proposal. Her determined rejection sets the two on a tumultuous path that involves Hosmer's troubled former wife, Fanny.

At Fault is set in the Post-Reconstruction rural South against a backdrop of economic devastation and simmering racial tensions. Written at the beginning of her career, it has parallels to Chopin's own life and contains characters and themes that prefigure her later works, including The Awakening.
--back cover

Genres: Classics, Fiction, Romance, Historical Fiction, Feminism, Literature, Womens

208 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1890

About the author

Kate Chopin was an American author whose fiction grew out of the complex cultures and contradictions of Louisiana life, and she gradually became one of the most distinctive voices in nineteenth century literature. Raised in a household shaped by strong women of French and Irish heritage, she developed an early love for books and storytelling, and that immersion in language later shaped the quiet precision of her prose. After marrying and moving to New Orleans, then later to the small community of Cloutierville, she absorbed the rhythms, customs, and tensions of Creole and Cajun society, finding in its people the material that would feed both her sympathy and her sharp observational eye. When personal loss left her searching for direction, she began writing with the encouragement of a family friend, discovering not only a therapeutic outlet but a genuine vocation. Within a few years, her stories appeared in major magazines such as The Atlantic Monthly, Vogue, and The Century, where readers encountered her local-color sketches, her portrayals of women navigating desire and constraint, and her nuanced depictions of life in the American South. She published two story collections, Bayou Folk and A Night in Acadie, introducing characters whose emotional lives were depicted with unusual honesty. Her short fiction often explored subjects others avoided, including interracial relationships, female autonomy, and the quiet but powerful inner conflicts of everyday people. That same unflinching quality shaped The Awakening, the novel that would later become her most celebrated work. At the time of its publication, however, its frank treatment of a married woman’s emotional and sensual awakening unsettled many critics, who judged it harshly, yet Chopin continued to write stories that revealed her commitment to portraying women as fully human, with desires and ambitions that stretched beyond the confines of convention. She admired the psychological clarity of Guy de Maupassant, but she pushed beyond his influence to craft a voice that was unmistakably her own, direct yet lyrical, and deeply attuned to the inner lives of her characters. Though some of her contemporaries viewed her themes as daring or even improper, others recognized her narrative skill, and within a decade of her passing she was already being described as a writer of remarkable talent. Her rediscovery in the twentieth century led readers to appreciate how modern her concerns truly were: the struggle for selfhood, the tension between social expectations and private longing, and the resilience of women seeking lives that felt authentically theirs. Today, her stories and novels are widely read, admired for their clarity, emotional intelligence, and the boldness with which they illuminate the complexities of human experience.

Reviews

[MihaElla · Rating 5 out of 5]

The highest tribute that I can give to this book is to simply say that when I had finished reading, I sincerely felt I need never read it again.
The ultimate may not be expressible, but whatsoever can be said, is included here within the all-embracing vision of two common people. In their extraordinary meeting a key insight is given and the doors open to understanding, acceptance and transcendence.
The experience is such that it is more like an experiencing than like an experience. It is a process - and it begins, but it never ends. You enter into it, but you never possess it. It is a deep merger, you simply melt away into it. Nothing is left behind, not even a trace, so who will communicate?
The reading of this book was a true communion. Two hearts met, it is a love affair. So how to communicate now a feeling, from heart to heart? I have always felt impotent as far as communication is concerned, from head to head, that is based on knowledge - that is only words are given, only words are said, and only words are taken and understood. And words are such: the very nature of words is so that nothing alive can be related through them. Even in ordinary experiencing when you have a peak moment, an ecstatic moment, when you really feel something and become something, it becomes impossible to relate it in words.

This book raised few questions, and amongst them remained clearly distinct: What is near you? Except for your self, isn’t everything else at a distance from you?
Only you are near your self. But by deserting yourself, you are always somewhere else - you are always somewhere in the “neighborhood”. So, when you are nowhere, you are in your self. That is inwardness, nearness, intimacy. And only by being there does one awaken into the truth.
There is no fault in the world. The fault lies in you and your outlook. That is to say, we are talking about a self-transforming experience. You don’t think of the world but of your outlook in relation to the world. It is because of your outlook that there is the world and there is bondage. Once your outlook is changed, the whole existence changes for you. (Which reminds me that It took me almost 12 yrs at the current work place to understand and accept this state of fact. Finally, transcendence arrived ;))

The book had a surprisingly unexpected closing - Kate Chopin was at her best, but this does not stop me from connecting to a memory of something I read about Freud.
Somebody asked Sigmund Freud once, “In fact, what exactly are you doing in psychoanalysis, and what is the goal of it?” He said - and, apparently he was a really authentic person- “At the most what we can do is this: we make hysterical, unhappy people normally unhappy. That’s all - hysterically unhappy people, normally unhappy. We bring them back to the normal unhappiness, like everybody else. They were going a little too much; they were creating too much unhappiness and they were becoming neurotic. We bring them back to the normal neurosis of humanity”.
Conclusively, Freud says “Man can never be happy. Man can only be either neurotically unhappy or normally unhappy, but man can never be happy”.

Based on the book’s final message, I can only say Freud is not for me 😆
Kate Chopin is Yes. So, that is to say, if you are really authentically, sincerely a seeker, then find someone with whom you can move in a deep commitment, with whom you can take the plunge into the unknown of life. Take courage and take the jump...

<< ...It’s been so long, I couldn’t have borne it but for you—the thought of you always present with me; helping me to take myself out of the past. That was why I waited—till I could come to you free. Have you an idea, I wonder, how you have been a promise, and can be the fulfillment of every good that life may give to a man?

No, I don’t know, I have seen myself at fault in following what seemed the only right. I feel as if there were no way to turn for the truth. Old supports appear to be giving way beneath me. They were so secure before. It commenced, you remember—oh, you know when it must have begun. But do you think, that it’s right we should find our happiness out of that past of pain and sin and trouble?

The Truth in its entirety isn’t given to man to know—such knowledge, no doubt, would be beyond human endurance. But we make a step towards it, when we learn that there is rottenness and evil in the world, masquerading as right and morality—when we learn to know the living spirit from the dead letter. I have not cared to stop in this struggle of life to question. You, perhaps, wouldn’t dare to alone. Together, dear one, we will work it out. Be sure there is a way—we may not find it in the end, but we will at least have tried. >>

[Diane S ☔ · Rating 3 out of 5]

Last time I read Chopin was back in high school and I have no intention of stating how long ago that was. I do remember liking her short stories. This book was the first she wrote, couldn't find a publisher so she published it herself. Post reconstruction, Louisianan, Therese finds herself a widow at a young age and in charge of a plantation. She meets Hossmer, a businessman, who will run the mill. A decision will be made that will have lasting and detrimental effect.

Racial tensions, Catholic beliefs as the basis of a moral dilemma, the boredom of a young woman with little to do with her time and the devastating effects of drink as well as the tragedy caused by mother nature. I enjoyed this, the way it was put together, the mix between the different speech patterns and the way the different situations were handled.

[SilviaG · Rating 4 out of 5]

No había leído nada de esta autora, aunque si que había oído hablar de ella por redes. Y encontré este libro por casualidad en la biblioteca.
Se trata de una novela costumbrista, ubicada en el sur de los Estados Unidos. En concreto, en una plantación situada en el estado de Lousiana, y dirigida por Thérèse Lafirme, una mujer viuda de ascendencia francesa.
En este pequeño libro (185 páginas), te sumerges en la vida sureña, en sus complicadas relaciones entre negros y blancos, en las fuertes convicciones éticas y religiosas de algunos de los personajes, y en las diferentes mentalidades de las sociedades de origen anglosajón y francés.
Aunque la trama principal es una historia de amor entre dos de sus personajes, para nada la catalogaría de una historia romántica. Además, hay que destacar lo bien que escribe la autora, que es capaz de sumergirte en la atmósfera de las plantaciones de algodón, utilizando incluso, el dialecto utilizado por los antiguos esclavos de las mismas.

[lee lee · Rating 5 out of 5]

again, not the edition i have. but the book's the same. right? i read this book directly after reading the awakening because that's what i do: read all books by an author (or as many as i can get my hands on) who has written one book that i really like. the edition i have is very small and square and a sky-blueish color. i remember that kate could not get anyone to publish this book because its heroin was divorced, so she published it herself and only put out 100 copies. i'm sure it put her and her children financially at risk to do so; but, man was it worth it! i actually liked this book better than the awakening (shhh...don't tell anyone) but i think that's probably because i identified with it more at the time. i'd have to re-read both now to see which i like better, writing-wise. i just realized i'm not really writing reviews of these books i own...oops & oh well.

[Atram_sinprisa · Rating 4 out of 5]

Maravillosa novela costumbrista acerca de una historia de amor imposible entre una mujer viuda y un hombre divorciado. La profunda fe en el matrimonio de ella le empuja a él a regresar con su antigua esposa en el absurdo convencimiento de que así podrá demostrarle su entereza.

Grandes latifundios, plantaciones de algodón, aserraderos, porches con mecedoras... Un magnífico retrato de un momento histórico duro pero a la vez hermoso en San Luis, EEUU. Y una velada crítica a las absurdas y excesivas novelas románticas de la época.

http://leersinprisa.com/la-culpa-kate...

[Illiterate · Rating 1 out of 5]

Catholic moralism initiates melodramatic romance.

[Juniperus · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book is racist, or rather, it depicts racism; I’m not sure which to say because I’m not sure what Chopin’s goal was, writing this. Chopin was writing At Fault about a plantation in 1890, so as uncomfortable as this book was I think it’d be more uncomfortable to deal with the cognitive dissonance of sanitizing the era. It’s similar to the debate around Quentin Tarantino’s Django Unchained — yes, the story contains racism, but does that mean it’s racist? His movie was obviously condemning racism, though there’s still an argument to be made that it’s not his story to tell. Chopin’s book isn’t about racism per se; she’s just describing the time and place she lived in. And could a wealthy white woman who’s parents owned slaves be trusted to write about it thoughtfully? Her short fiction (see “Desirée’s Baby”) shows a delicate and respectful treatment of the subject; At Fault is perhaps too immature a work to tell. It’s uncomfortable and at times really shocking, but I believe there’s something to be learned from reading forgotten works such as this.

That being said, At Fault is definitely an immature work. It’s full of hard to read Acadian dialects, but with some inconsistency, for example: Grégoire speaks in a thick accent only some of the time. Are the plain English parts supposed to be him speaking French with his aunt? Cultural differences are a theme at the forefront of this book, but their divisions are not immediately clear to the modern reader. The book starts out as a simple divorce drama (which can never be simple when Catholics are involved) but evolves into something much weirder. I don’t want to spoil it, but this confirms in my mind that Kate Chopin is the godmother of the Southern Gothic. There’s none of the niceties of her The Awakening, it’s much more like Flannery O’Connor’s Wise Blood in its use of the uncanny. Florid prose as always, At Fault showed potential for a fruitful career, but I’m not sure if I’d recommend reading it in particular.

[Andrew Sydlik · Rating 3 out of 5]

I read this novel mainly because I heard that it deal with an alcoholic character, and I'm going to be writing about addiction in nineteenth-century American literature for my dissertation. It doesn't dwell on the alcoholism too heavily. Fanny, the wife of David Hosmer, is the alcoholic in question, but we don't find this out until about halfway through the novel. The St. Louis couple has divorced, it seems. Hosmer goes to Louisiana to run a cotton mill on the plantation of a widowed woman, Therese Lafirme. (Though set in Reconstruction, the set-up sounds similar to pre-Civil War slavery; black servants are treated with a combination of condescension, disdain, and paternalism.)

The two fall in love, but...Therese can't return his affection out of a sense of moral duty...to his divorced wife? Apparently, Hosmer feels this too, and he remarries Fanny (I guess). I don't get it - I guess because Hosmer realizes that Fanny is "sick" and feels obligated to care for her, even though the two seem to hate each other. But why even go into the whole divorced/remarry plot? It seems unnecessarily convoluted to me.

One of the things that annoys me about late-nineteenth-century realism is its hesitance to comment on characters' inner thoughts and motivations. Here, the above-mentioned moralizing doesn't work without a greater understanding of David and Fanny's past. I think Chopin wanted to be subtle in introducing Fanny's drinking problem, which should be a good thing, but it actually makes it too hard to understand their relationship and its fractures. Fanny is also severely underdeveloped, coming off as a snobbish, whiny shrew whose drinking is just another act of defiance she does to keep herself from feeling vulnerable around others. Therese, meanwhile, is damn near a saint. Don't worry, though, Fanny gets punished--drowned by Mother Nature during a sudden thunderstorm, in what feels like a somewhat contrived scene.

Love triangles are always more interesting when you can empathize with all the characters involved. In this case, my empathy for Fanny only comes from knowing the real struggles addicts go through, and little has to do with her characterization. It's unfortunate, because Chopin does a pretty good job of fleshing out Hosmer and Therese, and even some of the minor characters, like Hosmer's sister, Melicent, and one of the Creole workers, Gregoire, who is in love with Melicent, but whose hot-tempered nature has tragic consequences.

Chopin is also deft at playing upon the balance of subdued realist descriptions and hints of melodrama and introspection that give us just the barest insight into characters' minds. Unfortunately, this balance is not sustained throughout the novel. But if a realist/minimalist style is more to your liking, you may get more out of it than I did. You also have to be able to deal with hefty doses of dialect, both of French Creole and slave plantation varieties. It's a bit hard to make out what the characters are saying sometimes, though it does add the flavor of Louisiana life to the dialogue.

Similar to The Awakening in a number of ways, but not quite as focused.

[Sonia · Rating 4 out of 5]

Al principio me recordó mucho a 'Lo que el viento se llevó': la protagonista de esta novela es Thérèse Lafirme, una viuda con una plantación de algodón a su cargo, en el sur de los Estados Unidos antes de la Guerra de Secesión.

Luego aparece un planteamiento moral que acababa de leer en 'Jane Eyre', pues aparece en la vida de Thérèse el señor Hosmer a proponerle un negocio, y acabarán sintiendo el uno por el otro algo más que amistad. Pero el pasado de Hosmer se interpondrá entre ellos, algo que llevará a la viuda a tomar una determinación, creyendo que hace lo correcto, pero sin tener en cuenta las consecuencias que pueda tener...

Y por último, hay algo de 'Pioneros' también en esta novela: la protagonista, firme, autosuficiente y moralmente irreprochable; el ambiente rural de los Estados Unidos propiedad de los inmigrantes, y el ritmo sincopado, en el que los saltos temporales siempre hacia adelante aparecen sin preaviso.

Pero sobre todo, sobre todo, es una novela en la que me ha parecido ver una crítica brutal a la religión y al daño que se puede hacer en su nombre simplemente creyendo que una está haciendo lo que debe hacer... Y digo "me parece" porque me resulta chocante que una mujer pudiera publicar esto en 1890 en Estados Unidos. En toda obra es importante conocer su contexto, pero en esta más todavía. Es la primera novela de Kate Chopin.

[Spencer · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not as good as The Awakening, but then, this was her first. Considering that this was written in 1890, it is quite remarkable. Set in the bayou region of Louisiana, and St. Louis, the book deals with divorce, adultery, murder, female alcoholism, racism, civil war, arson, drowning, marriage dominated by hate, and marriage filled with love. The ending is kind of corny, but I got over it because it was the end. One advantage of reading an author with such a small oeuvre is that you can have some interesting conversations comparing and contrasting the few works. I read this on my Kindle, and it contained 7 of her short stories. I can tell by reading them that she was greatly influenced by Guy de Maupassant. Would like to read all 96 of her short stories.

[Lucinda · Rating 2 out of 5]

A heavy-handed romance beleaguered by moralism of the worst kind, social darwinism and racism. There is some interesting cultural exposition on the plantations of Louisiana in the late 19th century, but really this story is an artifact of its times. Interesting in that sense, I suppose if you can stomach the aforementioned issues. Which makes me want to read 'The Awakening' again to see if I would find similar problems with that story (I did read it at a rather naive 18 or 19 years).

[Barbara Svetlick · Rating 3 out of 5]

I have enjoyed reading Kate Chopin more because I want an insight into society during her life. I found the dialect of the servants to be heavy and difficult to go between regular conversations to the way she writes when in the servants character. The story is good and highlights the struggle between the morals of the day and what one wanted.

[Liz · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Awakening is my favorite book, so I may be partial to Kate Chopin's work, but I did enjoy this book all in one day. She questions conventional morality and I have great appreciation for that. Even now, this book is relevant.

[Tom · Rating 3 out of 5]

Introduction by Bernard Koloski - 3.5 Stars

[Connie Vincent · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'm a fan of Chopin's short stories and "The Awakening". I found it intriguing that Chopin chose to self publish after the novel was initially rejected. If you loved "The Awakening" and are looking for something similar, this isn't it. Turn to her short stories, she has some exceptional ones.

[Lindsay Lock · Rating 4 out of 5]

It's filled with historically accurate conflict, sociolinguist complexity, and is a forerunner of feminist writings. I love her use of dialects and occasional French that gives the work depth. Well worth the read!

[Allegra Byron · Rating 5 out of 5]

Como siempre, una delicia de lectura. Kate Chopin y sus mujeres fuertes, en un Estados Unidos decimonónico, con exclavos y mucha historia.

[Ada Lago · Rating 5 out of 5]

Bueno, bueno. Acabo de terminar este maravilloso libro que me ha dado todo lo que necesitaba en la vida: profundidad, drama, amor verdadero y más cosas bonitas. Sinceramente, creo que la mitad de las personas que han leído este libro (según sus reseñas) no se han enterado mucho de qué trata, de por qué la protagonista toma las decisiones que toma y que, gracias a ellas, llegamos a un desenlace más que satisfactorio. Pero a ver, que me adelanto.

Este tipo de novelas costumbristas tienen argumentos muy simples. Pero ahí está la maestría de convertir una historia anodina en algo completamente apasionante. Kate Chopin me ha encantado en este libro tanto o más que en “El Despertar”.

La cuestión es que tenemos a una mujer, Thèrése Lafirme (Teresa pa los amigos), que es dueña de una plantación y que se queda viuda. Entonces aparece un hombre, David, que quiere montar un aserradero ahí en sus tierras. El hombre se enamora de ella y ella de él, pero ¡ah!, él está divorciado, y eso pone a Teresa en un dilema moral muy bien llevado, el cual define el curso de la novela. Y ahora necesito desvelar detalles de la trama porque sino no me puedo explicar bien. Que conste que he avisado.

Teresa, mujer de “corazón cálido y de clara visión mental”, tiene una conversación con David en la que él le explica las razones por las que dejó a su esposa. Ella saca la siguiente conclusión:

“Hay algo en su historia que he entendido perfectamente. Se casó usted con una mujer de carácter muy débil. Puso usted todos los medios para aumentar esa debilidad, y la expulsó totalmente de su vida, y a usted de la de ella. La dejó entonces prácticamente sin apoyo moral al abandonarla. Fue el acto de un cobarde. Un hombre se debe a su hombría, para enfrentarse a las consecuencias de sus actos”.

No puedo dejar de admirar a Teresa. Ella se sobrepone a su amor por David a causa de sus principios, y sabe ver a través de sus sentimientos que David no obró de la mejor manera con su esposa. Su firmeza y su integridad por hacer lo que considera correcto hacen que David reflexione e intente rescatar su antiguo matrimonio.

Y no comprendo a las personas que ven en Teresa a una puritana católica condenada por su propio sentido del deber. Eso, señores, se llama tener principios. Esos principios ponen a prueba a los dos, prueban la calidad de su persona interior y finalmente hacen que el amor del que disfrutan al final del libro sea un amor libre de pesares y cargos de conciencia. ¿Acaso alguien piensa que una mujer como Teresa hubiera podido ser feliz con David ignorando los dictados de su moral? ¿Acaso David se habría refinado como persona si no hubiera tratado de arreglar su matrimonio? Este libro es una lección de vida.

Hay un párrafo que define muy bien a David en su periplo emocional: “¿No seré nunca valiente? ¿Seré siempre cobarde, huyendo hasta de mis pensamientos?”
·¡Qué dura para él era aquella tarea de lidiar con las dificultades morales que, durante toda su vida anterior, por muy fácilmente que se presentasen, siempre había rehuido y evitado! Ahora se daba cuenta de que aquello había terminado. Si no quería que su vida acabase en un ignominioso naufragio, él mismo debía tomar el mando y corregir su rumbo”.

Esto es, a mi parecer, lo que conduce a ambos personajes principales a su final feliz. Ponerse a prueba y superarse. Si Teresa se hubiera casado con David ignorando su conciencia, hubiera sido desgraciada. Y él, tras el primer periodo de enamoramiento, tal vez la hubiera dejado atrás como hizo con su primera esposa. Pero enfrentarse a los actos propios y sufrir dificultades conduce a las personas a establecer relaciones firmes y duraderas. Amo este libro por ese mensaje tan valioso que desprende.

Y dejo aquí esta reseña-destripe de libro con unas bonitas palabras del final del libro: “En el amor se habían buscado, y ahora la plenitud de aquel amor había cumplido más de diez veces su promesa para ambos. Era un amor regio, un amor generoso e intenso en su revelación. Era un mago que había tocado la vida y la había transformado en gloria para ellos”.

<3 ❤️

(Le puse 4 estrellas pero después de escribir la reseña me he dado cuenta de que este libro merece mis dieces, o sea, mis cincos 🤔 bueno, eso).

[Philip · Rating 3 out of 5]

I think I can safely say that this book was not written for me. I probably have no business reviewing it.

"At Fault" is about a woman named Therese whose husband has just died, and she is trying to move on. She meets another man but she finds she cannot marry him, and her reservation leads to several unfortunate consequences, and she feels "at fault" for these consequences even though she was trying to do the right thing.

I don't know if this was intentional, but this plot reminded me of "Jane Eyre" - not only because it's about a woman who loves a man but cannot marry him because he has a prior commitment to another woman, but because of her reaction to this terrible conflict. In "Jane Eyre," the eponymous narrator declares, "Gentle reader, may you never feel what I then felt...for never may you, like me, dread to be the instrument of evil to what you wholly love." Similarly, Therese reflects at the end of this novel, "I have seen myself at fault in following what seemed the only right. I feel as if there were no way to turn for the truth. Old supports appear to be giving way beneath me. They were so secure before."

But "Jane Eyre" had characters I could care about, a protagonist who acted virtuously, and fleshed-out chemistry between the different characters. I didn't feel a whole lot when I read "At Fault." Honestly it just bored me. But, like I said, the author never intended this for a person such as myself.

[Megan · Rating 3 out of 5]

Honestly very boring but I can see why it was an important novel in the 1890s.

[Kyle McGuire · Rating 2 out of 5]

The plot is about a woman who is left in charge of a plantation and gets involved with a businessman and has to do deal with the consequences. It didn’t seem realistic to me because it took place in the 1800s and women didn’t really have rights back then. There was some racism in the book that really showed how people were treated back then because the books setting takes place in the 1800s. There were a lot of characters in the book and the main character is a catholic woman who shows a lot of courage and independence.
The tone of the book was positive because again, the women showed a lot of courage and independence by running a plantation back in this time. The book had some french in it which made it difficult to follow. The author uses very descriptive words along with a little bit of french that I had to look up to understand the meanings of the different works and language. I would recommend this book to people who are interested in books from this time and are interested in a woman who is being independent in the 1800s when they technically didn���t have the same rights as men did. I would not recommend this book to other young readers.

[Jenny Yates · Rating 3 out of 5]

In this Louisiana novel, published in 1890, Therese Lafirme is a young widow who is doing an able job running a plantation. David Hosmer, who runs the sawmill, falls in love with her, and she’s beginning to return his affection. But Therese is also a devout Catholic, and when she finds that David has been divorced, she persuades him that the right thing to do is to back and try again to make a life with his ex-wife.

David follows this advice, remarries Fanny (who is an alcoholic) and brings her back to live with him on the plantation. The novel explores the consequences of a loveless union, and Therese’s own doubts about her former ironclad beliefs.

It’s an honest novel, in that it questions the sanctity of marriage, and that was radical then. However, it’s not always easy to read, since it reflects the racism of its time. Chopin develops some interesting characters among the African-Americans connected to the plantation, but there are others that are treated more condescendingly. When she refers to them as a group, there are some jarring notes.

[Gary · Rating 3 out of 5]

I wanted to like this book a lot because I remember liking The Awakening when I read it a long time ago. But then I thought it's not really fair to compare the two; however, even standing alone At Fault is just ok at best. I think it actually deserves two stars, but I gave it a third just because of the courage Chopin had to write and self-publish this (and I'm always about independent women doing their own thing). My major gripe with this book was the way Chopin wrote the dialogue for any person of color. Usually I can pick up dialect pretty easily, but this was just plain bad. Authenticity is great, but not when it compromises the engagement of the reader.

[Marta Magnetti · Rating 4 out of 5]

“Thérèse had not reached the age of thirty-five without learning that life presents many insurmountable obstacles which must be accepted, whether with the callousness of philosophy, the revolt of weakness or the dignity of self-respect.”

[Sarah Dunsbee · Rating 4 out of 5]

Lots of faults but you care about the characters and there are some very powerful and vivid passages. Impressive for a first novel.

[Ostap Bender · Rating 4 out of 5]

From the back cover:
“Widowed at thirty-two, beautiful, resourceful Therese Lafirme is left alone to run her Louisiana plantation. When Therese falls in love with David Hosmer, a divorced businessman, her strong moral and religious convictions make it impossible for her to accept his marriage proposal. Her determined rejection sets the two on a tumultuous path that involves Hosmer’s troubled former wife, Fanny.”

This was Chopin’s first novel, written eight years after she herself was widowed at 32 on a Louisiana plantation (though unlike Therese, Chopin had six kids at the time). Chopin then had a romance with a married man before abruptly moving back to St. Louis a couple of years later.

The idea of divorce in the 19th century was highly distasteful, and particularly so to conservative, Catholic, southern communities. In her personal life as well as in her writing, Chopin thus wrestles with the question of an individual’s happiness in light of social pressures and the ethics of the times, like Edith Wharton would shortly afterwards. The conclusions she draws are clear: to subvert one’s happiness for the sake of an arbitrary code of righteousness is a mistake.

As for the writing itself, ‘At Fault’ is rough around the edges; dramatic events seem a little forced and the ending is too clean. The treatment of African-American characters is also tough to take, not because of outright violence, but because of the casual racism evident in how they’re depicted, which is lazy and unintelligent – and this isn’t just from the characters in the novel; Chopin herself apparently had these prejudices.

However, I took this as one of the truths of the novel, in effectively transporting me back to a bayou plantation and St. Louis in the 1880’s. Chopin’s characters are interesting, from the Creoles to the society ladies who she satirizes. A recurring theme is the difficulty of carrying on through change or after loss, which I suppose has a bigger implication in the Reconstruction South, but it’s highly personalized here.

This is a first novel and must be forgiven a few sins, and if you want the more polished Chopin head directly her classic, ‘The Awakening’, but I found ‘At Fault’ interesting and enjoyable.

Just this quote, on decisions in life:
“She tried to convince herself that a very insistent sting of remorse which she felt, came from selfishness – from the pain that her own heart suffered in the knowledge of Hosmer’s unhappiness. She was not callous enough to quiet her soul with the balm of having intended the best. She continued to ask herself only ‘was I right?’ and it was by the answer to that question that she would abide, whether in the stony content of accomplished righteousness, or in an enduring remorse that pointed to a goal in whose labyrinthine possibilities her soul lost itself and fainted away.”

[kglibrarian (Karin Greenberg) · Rating 3 out of 5]

The Awakening is one of my favorite books but I had never heard of At Fault until recently. After reading it, I understand why it's not a more circulated classic.

In some ways, the novel is surprising in its forward thinking nature--it highlights a widow, Therese, and a divorced man, David, who fall in love but because she is Catholic and he is not, she urges him to go back to his ex-wife, which he does to please Therese. Throughout most of the short book, there is not too much that happens plot-wise, which usually doesn't bother me, but the characters are not nearly as developed as they could have been and the story jumps around and is written in a way that is often choppy and melodramatic. There are passages that moved me, commenting about life in the wise way that classic authors tended to do ("Don't you think. . .that we make too much of our individual trials. We are all so prone to believe our own burden heavier than our neighbor's" (32). But in my favorite classics, I notice these types of gems on almost every page. In this book, I didn't notice many.

I also was disgusted by the way that the servants were written about. The time period is supposed to be the Reconstruction years but it seems that the workers are talked to and treated as badly as when they were slaves. There was something about the way Chopin depicted the races that didn't sit right with me. I know that books are products of their times but usually some humanity comes through and in this case I felt the racism was overly offensive.

Even though I won't be including this in my list of classics that I revere, I still enjoyed reading it and liked being transported to the Louisiana landscape.

[Matt Overos · Rating 1 out of 5]

It's seldom that I finish a book I'm not enjoying, but school will keep me going, and it did here. This is without a doubt the worst novel I have ever read by a noteworthy American author. I don't profess to be a huge Chopin fan, I think her short stories range from awful to fine, and The Awakening is retold countless times more effectively in short stories like "The Storm" which are quite good.
But man, this was awful. It is 1) completely irrational yet goes for a realism style, 2) relishes in tragedy and assails the reader, literally, with questions like "Why are all these bad things happening? Could it be that..." and 3) consists of some of the worst prose I've read in my life.
I mean, read this actual interchange that is meant to be serious between the two main characters:
"It would be a good idea; but--I'm not so certain about going away."
"Oh I beg your pardon. I fancied your movements were directed by some unchangeable laws."
"Like planets in their orbits? No, there is no absolute need of my going."

Almost every conversation reads like blocky script writing, with forced philosophical ruminations and connection to theology, name-dropping Schopenhauer a few times for good measure.

That said, there is some great camp (forgive me) value here. A bad book that, if you know its bad and don't mind spending a few hours with it, provides some laughs.

[CIBooks · Rating 4 out of 5]

7.5/10 - I chose this because I really enjoyed Chopin's most famous work, The Awakening. Published in 1890, At Fault takes place on an 'idyllic' plantation a few hours outside New Orleans. A middle-aged widow befriends the St Louis man who has come to run her timber mill.

Chopin really draws you into the lazy hazy atmosphere. The prose is lovely and the characters well drawn. Austen was right - a handful of characters in a small neighborhood is an excellent recipe.

The premise of the plot is a bit hard to believe, but the work itself feels very grounded. The climax was also rather predictable thanks to conspicuous foreshadowing. The book feels like it runs a bit long (4 hr? Not sure) but it all adds up. The author successfully portrays an entire society and way of life.

One thing I noticed is that Chopin's writing is very easy to read compared to her contemporaries (with the exception of thick Creole dialect from the servants).

Content Warning: the way the black servants are sometimes portrayed is brutish - and the author does it so casually too, like describing a tree in a scene.

I would this recommend to readers who enjoy 19th C classics. It's not a stand out of its era, but perfectly nice. I wouldn't read this again, but I do look forward to reading Bayou Folk at some point.

[Micah · Rating 5 out of 5]

From what I understand, Kate Chopin was a largely overlooked author who found posthumous success decades after her death through a cult following in feminist circles. At Fault is the first novel, the novel she couldn’t get published, the novel she is not remembered for, and that seems like a shame to me.

At Fault is a plantation novel that is pre Souther gothic, more reminiscent of something from George Elliot in it’s deeply romantic plotting and high moral insight. It is full of insight into the depths and shallowness of all sorts of men and women and the ways in which romantic attraction parallels depth of character and intellect. It is a novel about a smart, independent widow who encourages a man to do the right thing and their journey together as they live with the stifling and difficult consequences of trying to be morally upright. It is a novel that presents all the uglier aspects of racial relationships in rural, postbellum Louisiana.

The plot is completely unique in my experience. It is a romance, existing somewhere in the realm of Willa Cather, the Brontës, and George Elliot. The story is compelling and the philosophy is encouraging. If there is a genre I haven’t tapped that this novel exemplifies, I was to add more to my reading list.