The Midlander
1923
In the opulent shadow of the Oliphant family estate, two brothers have been raised on opposite sides of the same fortune. Harlan is polished, precise, the heir apparent to their father's empire of wealth and expectation. Dan is restless, magnetic, charmed by the city's darker corners and its less pedigreed pleasures. When Dan brings home a friend named Sam Kohn, the brothers' contrasting natures collide around something as old as money: prejudice masked as principle. What begins as sibling rivalry deepens into a question that cuts to the bone of American identity: who are we when no one is watching, and what do we owe to those who share our blood versus those who share our humanity? Booth Tarkington, twice winner of the Pulitzer Prize, crafts a sharp portrait of early 20th-century American life where inherited wealth meets the collision of old money and new anxieties. The Midlander follows both brothers as they stumble toward self-knowledge, their relationship fracturing and reforming under the weight of familial duty and social climbing. For readers who relish the social critiques of Fitzgerald and the domestic dramas of Henry James, this is a forgotten gem that reveals the ugly beauty of American class consciousness.
