FIDELITY

This reissue of Glaspell’s 1915 novel—about a woman who defies the conventions of her Midwestern town by running off with her married lover—reintroduces a writer whose ideas on individualism and conformity remain provocative.

At 20, Ruth Holland—the daughter of fictional Freeport, Iowa’s senior banker—falls in love with Stuart Williams, an older, unhappily married businessman whose wife has refused for years to divorce him. When Stuart is diagnosed with tuberculosis, Ruth runs away with him to Arizona; her only confidante in Freeport is Deane Franklin, a young doctor whose courtship she has rejected. Returning to Freeport 11 years later as her father is dying, Ruth finds herself weighing the costs and rewards of her decision. Although Glaspell became a Greenwich Village bohemian, she was born in Iowa and wrote about small-town life with a critical yet sympathetic eye. Ruth finds herself longing for the camaraderie and sense of belonging Freeport provided before her flight, but she can no longer accept the narrow social and intellectual boundaries the small town requires. Despite Ruth’s occasional verbal meandering around the concept of love, Glaspell’s title is less about romantic devotion than faithfulness to personal ideals in the face of other people’s judgment. Ruth is a strong protagonist, but the book’s real strength lies in showing how her actions have impacted everyone in her orbit. Many in Freeport’s privileged class cannot forgive her for disregarding accepted norms. Some girlhood friends are sympathetic toward Ruth but fear being ostracized if they reach out. Deane and Ted (Ruth’s youngest brother) have more independent natures and welcome her home, even if it costs them. While Stuart’s spirit, like the passion he and Ruth shared, has withered under the pressure of living with her as outcasts, Glaspell’s most intriguing, complex creation may be Stuart’s wife, Marion, who can seem cold but proves, in the end, to be heartbreakingly human.

In this lost gem from before World War I, gripping characters face emotions and crises only too familiar today.