fairly quick read (short chapters are the best with a busy lifestyle!) of this, the very first winner of the Pulitzer Prize for fiction! This is not a commonly found book, and i had to put forth effort to locate one. ( I am nearing a complete set of PP winners....)
So, this is the story of Roger and his 3 daughters, who are about as different from each other as possible, and how Roger struggles to adapt to the changing world, clinging to his traditional values, yet trying desperately to support and understand his girls. I had to keep reminding myself that this was written in 1917.....not a modern piece of fiction set in 1917, but written then. It had a remarkably easy feel and modern style to it, not to mention very strong forward thinking, several very strong women characters, and a probing look into the migrant tenement neighborhoods in NYC and their struggles before and during WWI. I for the most part enjoyed Roger's journey as he worked to support his family, but was slightly annoyed that he always seemed to need to have one of them to be upset with and disappointed in...and they all took their turns. A thoughtful look at what it means to be a family. ( )

For everyone who thinks that women had no choices in 1918, here is a novel that begs to differ. In fact, the choices Roger Gale’s three daughters make drive him quite crazy in this, the first ever Pulitzer Prize winner. He finds himself widowed and trying to understand and really get to know his three grown daughters. They are very different people, one a dedicated homemaker, one a passionate career woman/reformer, and the third a vacuous party girl who thinks more of money and position than anything else. During the course of the novel, he does forge an understanding of his family, and also a knowledge that their lives are their own and not his to manage anymore.

One of the major themes addressed is whether we live on after death in another realm, or whether our living on is something we do through our children and their children. To live on solely through our progeny is a bit of a depressing idea for me. In truth, our memory only survives, on average, two generations. There is not a single person on the face of this earth who ever knew my great-grandmother, and while she lives on in me genetically, I do not find that that is enough. And what of those who die young or have no children? In the end, I think Roger Gale discovers that it isn’t an either/or proposition, and I agree with that.

While this book is a bit dated, it does open a door into the attitudes and thoughts of the middle class of the early 1900s. I found myself confronting a few stereotypes and misconceptions I have had about how men might have viewed their daughters in this time period. In the upper class, they were still items to be traded to keep money concentrated; in the poorer classes, they were drudges perhaps, enslaved to trying to keep families fed and afloat, but I found Roger’s attitudes toward his daughters were very much in line with what someone of the 1950s middle class might have felt.

I felt there was a bit of unnecessary repetition toward the end and that the novel could, in fact, have been wound up sooner than it was. However, that did not detract appreciably from the experience of reading it and I exited with something significant gained from the read. In my quest to read all the Pulitzer prize winners, I have discovered that this first winner was far from the least worthy.
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1916. Roger Gale runs a news clipping business. He has three grown daughters and his wife is dead. Edith, the eldest, has four children and a baby on the way. Her husband is a developer, but he dies in a car crash. Then she goes back to the village in New Hampshire where Mr. Gale grew up. Deborah, the middle daughter, is a great education reformer, in the public schools on the Lower East Side. She won’t get married at first, because she thinks a family of her own will interfere with her work, but finally she does. The youngest daughter, Laura, is terribly gay, always dashing of to parties and dances. She marries a rich man. The eschew children and religion, and have affairs instead. Then she shockingly gets a divorce, and marries the man she was having the affair with. She dares to be happy and go unpunished, though none of the family really approve.

Most of the book is a sentimental meditation on life and death. We go on in our children’s lives. It’s about the bewildering scale of life and how little of it we can really know in our short stay here, but, ah, isn’t it grand? I enjoyed it. Can’t say it was gripping. Took me several months to finish. First novel to win the Pulitzer Prize. ( )

His Family received the first Pulitzer for fiction (then called "novels") in 1918. It traces a middle-class New York family through their ups and downs from the early 1910's to 1917. The family consists of a widower (who wants to be close to his children but doesn't feel he is and whose response to any kind of conflict is to try to smooth it over, anything for peace), his oldest daughter (the traditional wife), her husband and 5 children, his middle daughter (a career woman/feminist), and his youngest daughter (party girl). It's an interesting story of family life in the early 20th century but, deeper than that, it seems to me to be an interesting portrayal of the conflicts and changes going on in American society and the world at that time. That the author was active in working for social reform is reflected in the book. It was also interesting to see the expectations for the future which are reflected in the book. I found it to be a most enjoyable read. ( )

Won first Pulitzer Prize for Novel in 1918.

I was reminded of Virginia Woolf's The Years, but His Family is more personal and slightly less sweeping. The plotting is old-fashioned by today's standards, but the characterizations are developed and strong. The theme is well executed.

A great document of its time and of New York City in the 1910s. I wish more adults of today would read the book because it shows many of the issues we think of as so contemporary have been with our society for some time. Above all of that, though, this book celebrates family life, kindness, and the idea that with your family around you, you can get through anything.

While the novel features several interesting male characters, it is the females who are most interesting. The work features three kinds of pre-feminist women, although my use of the term pre-femnist here is ironic since the father calls Deborah a feminist at one point. Deborah is a career woman, running a school for immigrant children. She rejects the traditional women's roles because she is afraid of losing her identity. Edith, her older sister, is the opposite; she is married and has four children, and is pregant with her fifth child. She accepts the traditional, maternal, domestic role of a woman. Laura is the youngest, most carefree sister. She is interested in social activities, games, parties. Laura shows the materialistic woman, and hse married a wealthy man.

These early Pulitzer Prize winning novels show the struggles and hardships that are a part of the uniquely American experience. I think that when they were written part of their purpose was showing that people of all walks of life and personalities have troubles and obstacles in life. While His Family is quite dated in style, it contains some great lyrical passages that transmit the beauty of living and of the passing of generations. For us today, it is an interesting study in the expression, "the more things change, the more they stay the same." ( )