RICH MAN POOR MAN by Irwin Shaw

Finished Su 10/22/23

This is one of my ancient paperbacks that I had never read and there is no record of when I bought the book. 

In the novel 'THE COLOR OF LIGHT' by William Goldman one of the characters mentions that he likes the author Irwin Shaw and his college professor denigrates his choice. I like the writing of both authors and I think that they are very similar. 

Basically it is the story of three siblings:

Gretchen- the oldest and has an affair with a richer and older neighbor. She's frustrated and unlucky in love

 Tom- The youngest and a fighter and a demanding man. He goes outside of the law to get what he wants.

Rudolph- He was the brother that the parents felt was 'most likely to succeed'. He becomes the richest of the siblings.

From the book's review at Kirkus: 

"This ever and everlasting novel, proceeding with styleless ease in the most readable fashion possible, spans some twenty years and the three lives of the Jordache children from their divided beginnings to their unified endings in middle age. First Gretchen, from her slatternly start at 17 with a rich failure who to a degree is instrumental in all their lives. Gretchen goes on to New York and a lackluster marriage, to Los Angeles and an exciting one with a film director until his untimely death. Then there's Thomas, the insolent delinquent who disappears for years to become a prizefighter, whom Rudolph (he's next) helps unknowingly, and who repays his debt to society and to the family fully. And last Rudolph, handsome, cautious, acquisitive, who does become a rich man but a responsible one. . . . Mr. Shaw's story keeps going with a self-perpetuating interest and with the kind of professionalism that say Jerome Weidman manifests although forfeiting anything which qualifies at a literary level. But it should be eminently marketplaceable."

From the book's page at Wikipedia:

"The novel is a sprawling work, with over 600 pages, and covers many of the themes Shaw returns to again and again in all of his fiction – Americans living as expatriates in Europe, the McCarthy era, children trying to break away from the kind of life lived by their parents, social and political issues of capitalism, and the pain of relationships. On the very first page Shaw subtly telegraphs the sad ending of the story, in the same way that the first scene of a film will often quote the last scene.

Originally published as a short story in Playboy Magazine, it became an international bestseller when published as a novel. The bulk of the novel concerns the three children of German Americans Mary Pease and Axel Jordache – the eldest, Gretchen, the middle child, Rudolph, and the youngest, Thomas. It chronicles their experiences from the end of World War II until the late 1960s."

The novel was adapted into one of the first television miniseries for ABC television in 1976.