Hudson River Bracketed Author:Edith Wharton This book was a departure for Edith Wharton. In The Age of Innocence, Ethan Frome, and The House of Mirth, individuals who happen to be affluent have to navigate the shoals of tradition and expectation. But in this one the focus is the development of an artist while he battles money problems and adjusts to an unsuitable marriage. Unsually in Wha... more »rton's work, the protagonist is poor, Midwestern, creative, and green and gauche dealing with the literary world in New York. Besides the protagonist, the other characters are also brilliantly realized: a wealthy women as his mentor, his excruciatingly generous wife, his hollow dilettante of an editor. Worth reading for Wharton fans.« less