The Custom of the Country

Undine Spragg, the terminally unfulfilled social climber, is an avatar of the American type embodied by Trump and his ilk: ferociously hungry for status, material wealth, for the trappings of success without the enjoyment of it. The fact that the story takes place in Gilded Age New York reminds us that it was always thus. Deeply affecting.

I had a difficult time choosing between the three Edith Wharton books I've read within the past twelve months (The House of Mirth, Ghosts, and The Custom of the Country).

This novel features one of the most morally complex protagonists I've ever encountered, a social shapeshifter obsessively motivated by conspicuous consumption and class optics.

Wharton weaves satire into a fast-moving tragedy filled with shocking reversals, uniquely attentive to all the nuances and subliminal aggressions of her characters' worlds.

No hyperbole: this is one of the best novels I've ever read.

Is Undine Spragg Edith Wharton’s least admiral protagonist? Perhaps. But as well, she is her most beguiling.

With her modest mid-western roots and her hunger for something more, she personifies the American dream, only she incarnates its less noble form. Cunning and beautiful, she uses her every charm exclusively in service to her ambition.

There is something thoroughly modern about her self-belief, her perpetual reinvention. It’s impossible to look away as she ruthlessly forges her own future, defying expectations and conventions time and again. 

They say what goes around comes around; but when it comes to Undine Spragg we… show more.

Unlike the other authors on this list, Edith Wharton is not funny. And if you don’t believe me, or if you suffer from too much cheerfulness, read Ethan Frome. But even though I adore funny writers, I tip my Merry Widow hat to this American master. In The Custom of the Country she follows Midwestern gal Undine Spragg as she conquers first New York and then French society, leaving destroyed men in her wake. Downton Abbey fans will know that this was the book that inspired Julian Fellowes to produce his Gilded-Age saga and complete cottage industry. Undine is… show more.

Over a century before there were the Kardashian women and the Real Housewives, Edith Wharton created the character of Undine Spragg. Undine is the gold medal Olympic champion of social climbing—she needs to be seen and admired, to be at the cutting edge of fashion, and to be indisputably on top.  She will sacrifice anything to satisfy her hunger for status—marriages, children, and love. She fears nothing and no one. In the character Undine, Wharton held a mirror up to the superficial values of the Gilded Age. If Undine Spragg were created today, she would show the Kardashians… show more.