This novel is subtitled "A Novel of Marshall Field and the Gilded Age", and it is true that the legendary Chicago department store entrepreneur is a key character, but the narrator and central character is Delia Spencer Caton, who eventually married Field after she was widowed from her first husband, Arthur Caton, the son of the very rich and influential Chief Justice of the Illinois Supreme Court.
Delia comes from a leading Chicago family – her father is a partner in a leading retail enterprise and the family hobnobs with the other leaders of Chicago business, many with names that became household words, such as the Swifts and Armours of the meatpacking business, and others less well-known now but incredibly influential in American industry, such as Cyrus McCormick who created a revolution in farm equipment and whose company became International Harvester, and George Pullman, an engineer who developed the Pullman sleeping car (for trains) and was founder of an eponymous company town, and Potter Palmer, who developed and operated Chicago's grandest hotel, the Palmer House.
Historical accounts state that Marshall Field and his first wife, Nannie, had an unhappy marriage. Their constant fights were well-known and not confined to the privacy of their palatial home. Nannie spent long periods of time abroad, with and without the Fields' two children (a third had died very young). This is made abundantly clear throughout the narrative. The novel also describes her as a laudanum (an opiate) addict, but this may or may not be true.
According to the novel, Delia first meets Marshall Field when she is seventeen years old. It is 1871, and the time of The Great Fire that burned down vast parts of the city. Delia and her family are attending a ball at the Palmer House when the fire takes place, and Bertha Palmer, Potter Palmer's wife, introduces them. Delia is immediately smitten and apparently Field, twenty years her senior, is too.
The Spencers discover that their home and business were completely destroyed. Rebuilding will take quite some time, but just a few weeks later, with his extraordinary business acumen, Marshall Field and his partner have reopened in temporary quarters.
Around this time, Delia meets the handsome Arthur, whom she will eventually marry five years later. Their marriage brings together money and social prestige, but is portrayed as unhappy. While Delia and Arthur form a close bond of friendship, the marriage lacks sexual chemistry. Delia wants to have a child but it becomes clear that this will never happen. Arthur drinks heavily and though he is a lawyer, he spends his time with his horses and at his club. Despite this, the Catons build a luxurious mansion that backs up to the property of Marshall Field's even more spectacular home.
Arthur has a close relationship with his friend Paxton Lowry (an invention of the author). The two are nearly inseparable, though Paxton works through an array of girlfriends. When he leaves town for New York, Arthur is bereft. Eventually Paxton will return, marry and have a child, another enormous blow for Arthur. Paxton's and Arthur's relationship weaves in and out through the Catons' lives over the years...but eventually Delia and Marshall embark on their own clandestine affair, which per the plot will last over thirty years, and is lavishly described.
Historic accounts vary about the true degree and type of involvement between Delia and Marshall, but in this novel, they are passionate soulmates. Some real-life rumors about them went so far as to say that they had a tunnel built between their homes to enable their trysts.
Eventually, Nannie Field dies abroad in 1900, leaving Marshall free to remarry. Arthur dies in his and Delia's hotel suite at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel in New York in 1905. Newspaper accounts indicate various causes of death, but there were rumors of suicide and that is one of most the dramatic portrayals of the novel.
Delia and Marshall marry just months later, but the marriage is short-lived due to Marshall's untimely death a year later in 1906.
Historical accounts state that Delia lived on, moving to Washington, D.C., where she became a celebrated hostess. She died in 1938.
Another interesting detail of this novel is the intermittent appearance of Harry Selfridge, a leading employee of Marshall Field & Company, who eventually relocated to London and opened his own celebrated department store, Selfridge & Company, which exists till this day. Selfridge was the colorful subject of a British TV series that ran on PBS's Masterpiece several years ago – Mr. Selfridge.
I enjoyed the true-to-historical detail of Gilded Age Chicago, and the fabulous descriptions of the homes, the clothing and of the surroundings. The author also does an excellent job describing business practices of the period, key events like the Great Fire, The Columbian Exposition of 1893 (Chicago's first World's Fair, and the subject of the superb non-fiction work, The Devil in the White City by Erik Larson), the Haymarket Riots, and more. Arthur Caton and his relationship with his invented friend Paxton add drama, but there is a huge amount of supposition involved – a testimony to the author's skill, but that may also feel heavy handed.
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