Evelyn's Husband
The critique of white male society that Charles W. Chesnutt launched in A Marrow of Tradition continues in Evelyn’s Husband, one of six manuscripts left unpublished when this highly regarded African American innovator died.
Set in Boston society, on a deserted Caribbean island, and in Brazil, Evelyn’s Husbandis the story of two men—one old, one young—in love with the same young woman. Late in his career Chesnutt embarked on a period of experimentation with eccentric forms, finishing this hybrid of a romance and adventure story just before publishing his last work, The Colonel’s Dream.
In Evelyn’s Husband, Chesnutt crafts a parody examining white male roles in the early 1900s, a time when there was rampant anxiety over the subject. In Boston, the older man is left at the altar when his bride-to-be flees and marries a young architect. Later, trapped on an island together, the jilted lover and the young husband find a productive middle ground between the dilettante and the primitive.
Along with A Business Career, this novel marks Chesnutt’s achievement in being among the first African American authors to defy the color barrier and write fiction with a white cast of main characters.
Charles W. Chesnutt (1858-1932) was an innovative and influential African American writer of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. His novels published during his lifetime include The House Behind the Cedars, The Marrow of Tradition, and The Colonel’s Dream. His work also includesthe posthumously published novels Paul Marchand, F. M. C., A Business Career, and Evelyn’s Husband,all published by University Press of Mississippi. Matthew Wilson is associate professor of humanities and writing at Pennsylvania State University, Harrisburg. Marjan van Schaik coedited (with Matthew Wilson) A Business Career and is a part-time instructor at Millersville University.
Evelyn's Husband
By Charles W. Chesnutt; Edited by Matthew Wilson and Marjan van Schaik; Introduction by Matthew Wilson
