Leaders In Profile J. P. Marquand Makes Americans Shudder

Press, Volume XCVI, Issue 28343, 31 July 1957, Page 9

Leaders In Profile J. P. Marquand Makes Americans Shudder

(By

LES ARMOUR)

LONDON. Marquand’s prose is a kind of mental purgative. His countrymen shudder at the thought of him—as small boys shudder at the thought of castor oil.

But they read him because they feel better for it. Those who have achieved the “Success” advocated by the National Association of Manufacturers and extolled by the whisky advertisements feel better because Marquand understands them well enough to bring to the surface whatever trace of humility remains within ; Those who have not, feel better in the realisation that life at the top is not so good after all. John P. Marquand was clearly' born to purge the mighty. His family had been rich New Englanders with pedigrees going bac’- to 1732 when the first Marquand sailed from Guernsey. The first American-born Marquand managed comfortably in the twin business of merchant and privateer and, indeed, became so rich that he felt constrained to pray “Lord, stay Thy hand. Thy servant hath had enough.” But John P.’s father was ruined in the great financial panic of 1907. As a consequence of his father’s downfall, he went to live with two maiden aunts. “I was a well-bred little boy and the rug was pulled out from under me,” he explains. There are those who think that he did not fall very far. He went to a decent school and on to Harvard. But it was the wrong school and, consequently, he was not elected to any of the socially acceptable clubs at Harvard. From there he went to work in an advertising agency. Clearly, however, his disillusionment with the Great American Dream was already so deep-set that he was doomed to failure. His employer tactfully suggested that he retire from the business on the grounds that he did not have the “business instinct.” Promptly, he wrote a bad historical novel—and sold it for two thousand dollars. Shortly afterwards he was approached by a couple of young men who wanted to interest him in putting up a little mohey for a new magazine. Marquand counted his money and decided that he needed a new pair of shoes. He accordingly refused to lend any. The magazine was “Time.” Marquand, however, had no need of a magazine to help him make his money. By the middle twenties—when he was in his early thirties—he was a best-sell-ing novelist. By this time, too, he had married Christina Sedgwick, daughter of a rich Bostonian. Marquand found his in-laws a little irritating. They found him a doubtful quantity. Novelists, after all, are apt to be a little unstable. The break came when Marquand decided to blow the top off Beacon Hill with a book called “The Late George Apley.” The book chronicled the ritualistic emptiness and ultra-genteel snobbery which concealed a sort of robber-baron rapacity.Christina looked at the manuscript and said quietly: “That’s a good book to write if you want to leave Boston.” The book was finally published in 1937, the year in which Marquand married his second wife. Adelaide Hooker. Thereafter, the snobs and the tycoons had little peace. Marquand, meanwhile, moved comfortably into his present home on Kent’s Island, Newburyport, Massachusetts, and settled down to enjoy a close-up view of the devastation he wreaked. Mr Moto Reinstated At the same time, he invented Mr Moto, a gentlemanly Japanese detective whose adventures with crime were entirely harmless and incredibly profitable to Mr Marquand. Now, after a suitable interlude to allow those in whom the war might have dulled appreciation of Mr Moto to recover their balance, Marquand has revived him. This time, he is working, naturally, for American Intelligence and he is not quite so carefree. The matters he deals with now have a slightly nightmarish quality—indicating, perhaps, that years of pumping high explosive at his countrymen have left Marquand himself a little shellshocked. Mr Moto however, was never more than a diversion. The serious business went on—on through “H.M. Pulham, Esq.’” “So Little Time,” “Melville Goodwin, U.S.A.” The last chapter, published in 1955, was called “Sincerely, Willis Wayde.” Wayde, a young man who icramblaa up tha iaduatrial ladder

through the good offices of an ancient Bostonian family, the Harcourts, lives long enough to take over their business and close it down ruthlessly. Naturally, Wayde starts out as a young man whose ideals are those of the “Saturday Evening Post’s” industrial commentator —tempered only by the desire to get ahead. And, naturally, the tempering eventually kills the ideals and leaves only the faintest bad conscience. That faint conscience is daacribed in loving detail by Marcfftand. To him it is the one redeeming feature in his otherwise totally repellent characters. The Marquand thesis is, simply, that the unfettered pursuit of material goods and the pursuit of the good life are totally incompatible. Thp veneer of “good life” poured on by the proper Bostonians involves either living in a world bearing no relation to reality or living a constant hypocrisy. Naturally, this has not made him personally popular—no matter how many masochists may queue up to buy his books. Marquand said not so long ago: “I have only three friends and two of them don’t like me.” That of course, is an exaggeration but, if it were not for the fact that the white-haired, softvoiced Marquand gives every outward appearance of living and liking the good aristocratic life, there would ho doubt be a lot of people ready to investigate him for subversion. If anyone has subverted the American Way of Life it is certainly Marquand. The trouble is he doesn’t live like a subversive. And he has even remained, as he was born, a Unitarian. What coujd be more proper than the Unitarian Harvard man with a farm on Kent’s Island and membership cards to the Century and the Somerset Clubs?