'Rich Man, Poor Man' (1969) by Irwin Shaw [Part 1 of 3]

Part 2: https://rumble.com/v5eqdwt-rich-man-poor-man-1969-by-irwin-shaw-part-2-of-3.html

'Rich Man, Poor Man' by Irwin Shaw. It is the last of the novels of Shaw's middle period before he began to concentrate, in his last works such as 'Evening In Byzantium', 'Nightwork', 'Bread Upon The Waters' and 'Acceptable Losses' on the inevitability of impending death. The title is taken from the nursery rhyme "Tinker, Tailor".

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 a sensation 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 diverse experiences from the end of World War II until the late 1960s.