Early on, Emma acts as Joseph’s secretary and helps transcribe the revelations that will become the Book of Mormon, but as his congregation grows, she is pushed out of the inner circle. As time goes by, she finds it increasingly difficult not to question her faith — and her marriage. Then comes the ultimate test, Joseph’s adoption of the polygamous “spiritual wives doctrine,” which sees him taking on a woman Emma thought was her best friend. At this point, however, it is too late to change course. Joseph is ‘a regular part of her life. Without him she wouldn’t have known who she was.”
The luminaries of New York’s social life in the late 1800s are besieged in Carol Wallace’s charming historical romance, OUR KINDS OF PEOPLE (Putnam, 357 pp., paperback, $17). Perfect for the appetite whetted by HBO’s “The Gilded Age,” it follows the fortunes of Helen and Joshua Wilcox, whose love match (she’s from an old family; he barely qualifies as “trade”) still has a hint of scandal to their teenage daughters, Jemima and Alice, when debutante season arrives.
Their father makes matters worse by taking a business gamble that requires the family to save money by moving in with Helen’s icy mother. Jemima and Alice are attracted to seemingly unsuitable older men. Will Jemima succumb to the charms of the nouveau-riche wheeler dealer that nearly bankrupted Joshua? Is Alice totally captivated by a widower with a “noble war wound” and an adorable child? Of more immediate concern, will Joshua’s plan to go public with his transportation company be his downfall – or will it give Helen the means to challenge Annabelle van Ormskirk, the daughter of Manhattan’s elite? Wallace allows us to frisson of uncertainty, but it’s not enough to sabotage our hopes for the Wilcoxen’s happy ending. After all, as Helen likes to learn, her mother’s “small, pastel-colored version of New York” is quickly being replaced by “a bigger, louder, more colorful city.”
Victoria Shorr uses a few novellas in MIDDLE AIR (Norton, 179 pp., $26.95) to pit two quintessentially American families, one clinging to an impeccably well-connected past and the other scrambling roughly to build a fortune for the future. By the time the scruffy, genteel main character in “Great Uncle Edward” sits down to dinner in his great-nephew’s apartment, what’s left of his family’s well-mannered aristocratic world is little more than his debauched. Edward Perkins’ button-up style is a far cry from that of the 13-year-old immigrant who arrives at Ellis Island in Shorr’s second novella, “Cleveland Auto Wrecking.” Given the “American name” Sam White, he manages to rush from Midwestern peddler to real estate lord in Palm Springs, using a remarkable head for numbers to make up for his inability to read. That is a skill he will leave to his three sons, who will work their way from managing the family graveyard to multiplying the old man’s millions.
