Possession

A NOVEL BY LOUIS BROMFIELD Author of “The Green Bay Tree NEW YORK FREDERICK A. STOKES COMPANY MCMXXVI Copyright, 1925, by Frederick A. Stokes Company All rights reserved
To MARY
“Life is hard for our children. It isn’t as simple as it was for us. Their grandfathers were pioneers and the same blood runs in their veins, only they haven’t a frontier any longer. They stand—these children of ours—with their backs toward this rough-hewn middle west and their faces set toward Europe and the East and they belong to neither. They are lost somewhere between.”
“Wherever she goes, trouble will follow. She’s born like most people with a touch of genius, under a curse. She is certain to affect the lives of every one about her ... because, well, because the threads of our lives are hopelessly tangled.... Marry her if you will, but don’t expect happiness to come of it. She would doubtless bear you a son ... a fine strong son, because she’s a fine cold animal. But don’t expect satisfaction from her. She knows too well exactly where she is bound.”
“Possession” is in no sense a sequel to “The Green Bay Tree.” The second novel does not carry the fortunes of the characters which appeared in the first; it reveals, speaking chronologically, little beyond the final page of the earlier book. On the contrary both novels cover virtually the same period of time, from the waning years of the nineteenth century up to the present time. The two are what might be called panel novels in a screen which, when complete, will consist of at least a half-dozen panels all interrelated and each giving a certain phase of the ungainly, swarming, glittering spectacle of American Life.
Those who read “The Green Bay Tree” must have felt that one character—that of Ellen Tolliver—was thrust aside in order to make way for the progress of Lily Shane. With the publication of the present novel, it is possible to say that the energetic Miss Tolliver was neglected for two reasons; first, because she was a character of such violence that, once given her way, she would soon have dominated all the others; second, because the author kept her purposely in restraint, as he desired to tell her story in proportions worthy of her.