the home maker by dorothy canfield fisher

As newcomers to the town, Mr Welles and Vincent Marsh introduce Marise to different ideas and opinions. I found it interesting to see how this novel, published in 1919, explores some of the attitudes, views and theories of the time surrounding issues such as childcare, parenthood, identity and marriage. Do the children appreciate everything she has done for them? Do they even truly love her or would they feel the same about any adult who raised them? Is her life being wasted in this quiet little town in Vermont? Forced to question all the things in which she has ever believed, Marise remembers the vow she made in Rome – that she and Neale should each be true to themselves no matter what. Vincent makes her think differently about her life and about her relationships with her husband and children.

When Mr Welles, a retired office worker, moves in next door accompanied by his younger friend, Vincent Marsh, Marise begins to feel even more unsettled. Where once she had three children at home all day, now she has none and, with Neale so busy running the family business, Marise’s role as wife and mother is no longer the same as it used to be. It’s 1920 and Marise has just sent their youngest child, Mark, off to school for the first time. We must!”Įleven years later, Marise and Neale are married and living in Vermont. No matter what it costs us personally, or what it brings, we must be true to that. “But what would poison us to death…what I’m afraid of, between two people who try to be what we want to be to each other…how can I say it?” She looked at him in an anguish of endeavor, “…not to be true to what is deepest and most living in us…that would be the betrayal I’m afraid of. Marise has a very clear idea of what she wants and expects from their relationship: The Brimming Cup opens with a prologue set in Italy in 1909 in which we briefly meet Neale and Marise, a young couple who are very much in love and making plans for the future. Ideally I would have started with her most popular book, The Home-Maker, but as I didn’t have a copy of that one, it made sense to read the one I did have instead.

I had never read anything by Dorothy Canfield Fisher, so when I saw that she was the next author in Jane’s Birthday Book of Underappreciated Lady Authors, I thought this would be the perfect opportunity.

The home maker by dorothy canfield fisher