The Other House

(Paperback, Main)

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Description

This terse and startling novel, written just before The Spoils of Poynton and What Maisie Knew, is the story of a struggle for possession-and of its devastating consequences. Three women seek to secure the affections of one man, while he, in turn, tries to satisfy them all. But in the middle of this contest of wills stands his unwitting and vulnerable young daughter. The savage conclusion of The Other House makes it one of the most disturbing and memorable of Henry James's depictions of the uncontrollable passions that lie beneath the polished veneer of civilized life.

Reviews

"The Other Houseis the story of a brutal crime, and its violence is not duplicated in any of Henry Jamess other works[It] takes place in broad British daylight, and the passions which explode in it with such force are acted out on disciplined lawns between stately British houses, deriving their wellfounded security from a banking fortune.The Other Houseis intensely British in its motives and emotions; and its intensity derives precisely from the fact that when the calm is broken, and the conflictis engaged the contrast is as of a violent rush of air into a place of quiet"Leon Edel

"The Other Housecontains some of the most harrowing, compressed, and ambiguous scenes James ever wrote."Threepenny Review

"Played out on the tidy lawns between two aristocratic houses, the staid Eastmead and the boisterous Bounds, a desperately tangled love-scrimmage spirals into a crime of unspeakable brutality, with a deeply unsettling climax. Readers left puzzled by the murky pychosexual terror of JamessThe Turn of The Screwshould give this passionate melodrama a try."Library Journal

Author Bio

Henry James (1843-1916), the younger brother of the psychologist William James and one of the greatest of American writers, was born in New York but lived for most of his life in England. Among the best known of his many stories and novels are The Portrait of a Lady, The Turn of the Screw, and The Wings of the Dove. In addition to The New York Stories of Henry James, New York Review Classics has published several long-unavailable James novels: The Other House, The Outcry, and The Ivory Tower. Louis Begley is a novelist and retired lawyer. He has written eight novels, including Wartime Lies, About Schmidt. and Matters of Honor, which was published in 2007. He is a Chevalier de l'Ordre des Arts et Lettres of France and served as the president of American pen from 1993 to 1995. He lives in New York with his wife, Anka Muhlstein, an historian of France.