In the midst of the Amberson’s decline is a spoiled and arrogant child named George or “Georgie” Amberson Minafer. The old ways become dusty, frail, and complacent in their own hubris, thus beckoning a new age of progress. Suddenly, the prestige of the Amberson family begins to wane. This little Midwestern town quietly grows into an industrial city (much like Indianapolis once did) and new technologies, like the automobile, begin to accelerate the pace of life. However, with the passing of an older generation comes a new sense of urgency and growth. All seems well in this ante-hurried-mobilian Eden. Streets and buildings all bear the Amberson name, and the fabulous Amberson mansion sits at the far end of town. At the center of this blissful epoch is the Amberson family, whose Gilded Age fortune had built this little town. We see children playing in the streets, women gossiping on warm summer nights, and teenagers wooing their neighbor’s daughters while courtly carriages gently trot by. The beginning of the novel offers readers a taste of yesteryear –we are treated to a beautiful panorama of life in a small midland town at the turn of the century. Mirroring Booth Tarkington’s own life, The Magnificent Ambersons is the tragic story of a once-prominent Midwestern family. In his later years, he became a sailor, and as a result of his literary successes, he was often celebrated as the toast of East Coast elite circles, rubbing shoulders with high society everywhere he went.

Tarkington married twice and had one daughter who sadly died at a young age. Originally hailing from Indianapolis (where his novels were mostly set), Newton Booth Tarkington was a degree-less Princeton man whose upper-crust patrician Midwestern family tragically lost most of its wealth during the Panic of 1893, not unlike the fictional Amberson family. In his day, Tarkington was considered among the best novelists of his generation, an erudite midwestern gentleman who dined with business magnates and politicians alike, but today he has fallen among the crowded ranks of mostly forgotten Pulitzer Prize-winners. With two Pulitzer Prizes, Tarkington became the founding member of an exclusive club which, in later years, also included William Faulkner and John Updike, who both won two Pulitzer Prizes (and as of 2020 Colson Whitehead has also achieved this rare distinction). Its author, Booth Tarkington, is one of the few writers to ever win the Pulitzer twice (amazingly, he won it again for Alice Adams in 1922). A stately American novel if there ever was one, The Magnificent Ambersons (1918) won the second “Pulitzer Prize for the Novel” in 1919.

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