Overview

They say that behind every great man is a woman. Behind Edith Wharton, there was Anna Bahlmann-her governess turned literary secretary, and her mothering, nuturing friend. When at the age of forty-five Edith falls passionately in love with a dashing, younger journalist, Morton Fullerton, and is at last opened to the world of the sensual, it threatens everything certain in her life-but especially her abiding friendship with Anna. As Edith's marriage crumbles, the women must face the fragility at the heart of all friendships. The Age of Desire takes us on a vivid journey through Wharton's early Gilded Age world: Paris with its glamorous literary salons and dark secret cafes, the Wharton's elegant house in Lenox, Massachusetts, and Henry James' manse in Rye, England. Edith's real letters and intimate diary entries are woven throughout the book. The Age of Desire brings to life one of literatures most beloved writers, whose own story was as complex and nuanced as that of any of the heroines she created.

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9780792789055

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Reviews

Fields bases her perceptive novel on Wharton's own diaries and letters. ...[The Age of Desire] sheds welcome light on the little-known private life of a famous woman and her closest relationships in early-twentieth-century Europe and America. -- Booklist Fields supplements the story with fascinating excerpts from Wharton's actual letters and includes appearances by other authors of the period...to re-create the exciting literary landscape of Paris and New York in the first decade of the 20th century...The novel should...appeal to those who enjoyed Paula McLain's The Paris Wife. -- Library Journal Delicate and imaginative...Fields's love and respect for all her characters and her care in telling their stories shines through. -- Publishers Weekly Somewhere between the repressiveness of Edith Wharton's early-20th-century Age of Innocence and our own libertine Shades of Grey era lies the absorbingly sensuous world of Jennie Fields's The Age of Desire... along with the overheated romance and the middle-age passion it so accurately describes, The Age of Desire also offers something simpler and quieter: a tribute to the enduring power of female friendship. -- Boston Globe With astonishing tenderness and immediacy, The Age of Desire portrays the interwoven lives of Edith Wharton and Anna Bahlmann, her governess, secretary, and close friend. By focusing on these two women from vastly different backgrounds, Jennie Fields miraculously illuminates an entire era...I gained insight into both Wharton's monumental work and her personal struggles-and I was filled with regret that I'd finished reading so soon. -- Lauren Belfer, author of City of Light and A Fierce Radiance One doesn't have to be an Edith Wharton fan to luxuriate in the Wharton-esque plotting and prose Fields so elegantly conjures. -- Kirkus Reviews

"With astonishing tenderness and immediacy, The Age of Desire portrays the interwoven lives of Edith Wharton and Anna Bahlmann, her governess, secretary, and close friend. By focusing on these two women from vastly different backgrounds, Jennie Fields miraculously illuminates an entire era...I gained insight into both Wharton's monumental work and her personal struggles-and I was filled with regret that I'd finished reading so soon. -- ""Lauren Belfer, author of City of Light and A Fierce Radiance"" Delicate and imaginative...Fields's love and respect for all her characters and her care in telling their stories shines through. -- ""Publishers Weekly"" Fields bases her perceptive novel on Wharton's own diaries and letters. ...[The Age of Desire] sheds welcome light on the little-known private life of a famous woman and her closest relationships in early-twentieth-century Europe and America. -- ""Booklist "" Fields supplements the story with fascinating excerpts from Wharton's actual letters and includes appearances by other authors of the period...to re-create the exciting literary landscape of Paris and New York in the first decade of the 20th century...The novel should...appeal to those who enjoyed Paula McLain's The Paris Wife. -- ""Library Journal"" One doesn't have to be an Edith Wharton fan to luxuriate in the Wharton-esque plotting and prose Fields so elegantly conjures. -- ""Kirkus Reviews"" Somewhere between the repressiveness of Edith Wharton's early-20th-century Age of Innocence and our own libertine Shades of Grey era lies the absorbingly sensuous world of Jennie Fields's The Age of Desire... along with the overheated romance and the middle-age passion it so accurately describes, The Age of Desire also offers something simpler and quieter: a tribute to the enduring power of female friendship. -- ""Boston Globe"""

One doesn't have to be an Edith Wharton fan to luxuriate in the Wharton-esque plotting and prose Fields so elegantly conjures. -- Kirkus Reviews With astonishing tenderness and immediacy, The Age of Desire portrays the interwoven lives of Edith Wharton and Anna Bahlmann, her governess, secretary, and close friend. By focusing on these two women from vastly different backgrounds, Jennie Fields miraculously illuminates an entire era...I gained insight into both Wharton's monumental work and her personal struggles-and I was filled with regret that I'd finished reading so soon. -- Lauren Belfer, author of City of Light and A Fierce Radiance Somewhere between the repressiveness of Edith Wharton's early-20th-century Age of Innocence and our own libertine Shades of Grey era lies the absorbingly sensuous world of Jennie Fields's The Age of Desire... along with the overheated romance and the middle-age passion it so accurately describes, The Age of Desire also offers something simpler and quieter: a tribute to the enduring power of female friendship. -- Boston Globe Delicate and imaginative...Fields's love and respect for all her characters and her care in telling their stories shines through. -- Publishers Weekly Fields supplements the story with fascinating excerpts from Wharton's actual letters and includes appearances by other authors of the period...to re-create the exciting literary landscape of Paris and New York in the first decade of the 20th century...The novel should...appeal to those who enjoyed Paula McLain's The Paris Wife. -- Library Journal Fields bases her perceptive novel on Wharton's own diaries and letters. ...[The Age of Desire] sheds welcome light on the little-known private life of a famous woman and her closest relationships in early-twentieth-century Europe and America. -- Booklist

Author Information

Jennie Fields received an MA in creative writing from the University of Iowa Writers' Workshop and is the author of the novels Lily Beach, Crossing Brooklyn Ferry, and The Middle Ages. An Illinois native, she spent twenty-five years as an advertising creative director in New York and currently lives with her husband in Nashville. Meredith Mitchell is an actress who has performed in such films as Mona Lisa Smile and The Reunion, on stage with Shakespeare & Company and the New Repertory Theatre, and on television on Good Morning America. She received her BA in psychology from Emory University and her MFA in acting from Brandeis University.

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