I think the Agnes-Virgil romance was non-existent only in the eyes of others, and probably Virgil himself. To Agnes, I think it was very present and then Virgil’s death froze it in ice for her.
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Oh my, I bet you mean And Ladies of the Club by Helen Hooven Santmyer. I haven’t thought about that book in years! I remember being so frustrated by one of the women, who stood by her serially unfaithful husband because he was otherwise a good man (the town doctor).
The book is 1,184 pages, set in a fictional town in southwestern Ohio. From Wikipedia:
“…And Ladies of the Club” centers on the members of a book club and their struggles to understand themselves, each other, and the tumultuous world they live in.
…
the primary characters are Anne Gordon and Sally Rausch, who in 1868 are new graduates of the Waynesboro Female College. They each marry soon after the opening of the book, and the decades that follow chronicle their marriages and those of their children and grandchildren. Santmyer focuses not just on the lives of the women in the club, but also their families, friends, politics, and developments in their small town and the larger world.
I can see why you thought of it.
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Great detective work, @MMRose. In hindsight, the clues about Heidi seem so obvious – but clearly they weren’t, for most of us.
I agree that Agnes’ love for Virgil was unrequited, although there’s no question that they were very close. Agnes writes:
He has behaved toward me as always, with utter respect and a kind of adoration. We haven’t spoken about love, thought it is everywhere around us and between us (p. 434).
So for Virgil, it was agape, and for Agnes, eros. Virgil may have suspected this. But if so, why would he let Karen arrange the big announcement? He would have to have known it would be brutal. Seems like the coward’s way out.
Anyway, good riddance to bad rubbish. If I had to choose one word to sum up Virgil, it would be neglect. He neglected to take Ro to the hospital and she died. His neglect of Nan bordered on criminal. He neglected to address the feelings Agnes had for him, but had no problem using her as a shoulder to sob on.
Virgil is one of the most thinly written characters. It’s odd because Dark says in the interview that he is the first character she wrote. Maybe he had to be written insubstantially because if we knew him better, we would know how he felt about Karen. They’re a weird match though, right? I didn’t buy it.
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They were definitely an odd match and I felt so sad and uncomfortable for Agnes when she was informed.
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We have a family place that is shared by all the cousins on my mother’s side. We call it “The Shack”. We had a big meeting of my generation at some point that my mother and her sister arranged for us to have with their lawyer to ask us what we wanted to do with the future. (More on that later.) But the part that is the funniest is that our lawyer who had just visited it, said, “I thought it was going to be a house, but it really is a shack.” It was basically a barn on the water for building boats. It’s one room down stairs and the attic up stairs is divided into two rooms plus a bathroom. At the time it still had knob and tube wiring. When we were little we had a party line.
But the other reason that this hit close to home is that my aunt was Agnes, determined to create a trust that would only give us use of the house for 20 years and would give all the land to a Conservation Trust. My mother was Polly, not willing to disagree, but we don’t think she was on board. Things dragged on my mother had dementia, my brother had the power of attorney and we were getting calls from Agnes asking him to sign over the place. We were all agreed that whatever my mother had said to her sister, she certainly didn’t seem to want what was being proposed. So we all stalled. (Oh and at that meeting we all agreed that we wanted to keep the house, so we are all mystified by what my aunt thought was an acceptable agreement.) We probably will give some of it away because sadly while my mother’s side of the family was wealthy, most of that wealth has long since been whittled away. Maybe a few too many prep school teachers enjoying their summers on the Cape? And not enough keeping a hand in whatever businesses had made them wealthy in the first place.
Anyway for that reason the whole beginning of the book gave both my husband and me the heebie jeebies - it just hit too close to home! At least in the case of Fellowship Point it seemed like half the houses had already been abandoned.
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The good men in this book are outnumbered by the bad: Dick, James, Archie, Hamm, Miles. They’re not evil, just jerks, each in his own way. And there’s not one healthy marriage. Lachlan and Grace, Polly and Dick, Archie and Seela, Heidi and Moses…ugh. It’s easy to see why Agnes ultimately has no regrets about being single.
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Interesting story. Maybe you followed the land trust stuff more closely than I did. (It didn’t help that I listened to the end of the audio book after Thanksgiving dinner and dessert, a bit dozen). Did Polly and her sons still have access to the house? Or all rights to the indian tribe?
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In a long novel, the Virgil/ Karen/ Agnes luncheon scene was a moment of such intensity, finally something pivotal happened in the book, our long journey to these scenes.
I recently reread that part, and it’s heartbreaking to witness, our “fearless, strong, feminist “ Agnes, be so vulnerable.
And, then the drama, of Nan slipping out of the house, and Agnes finding them, big moments of such intensity in a book that had so much character development and fewer climatic scenes. Wow.
Did Virgil know of Agnes’s crush? I thought so when he cried when she hugged him goodbye.
How cruel for him to participate in such an event.
I expected it to be “Virgil” as someone she “ loved “ when she mentioned to Polly she wanted that phrase as her epigraph.
Agnes was drawn to the broken, we saw her maternal, loving “nurturing” part of her through the characters of Virgil ( lover) and Nan ( maternal ).
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In my Goodreads review I mention my familiarity with Rittenhouse. square, and my interest in all things Maine. my grandfather’s family lived in Philly, he even went to a Maine camp in 1905, I have pictures I treasure.
Like you @mmrose I devoured the book in three days, but completely understand if I stopped reading at the meandering parts, I might not have been finished this one.
Do we all know women on this “feminist / conformist “ continuum ? Agnes, a Katherine Hepburn, rebel, and Polly, a 1950’s conformist wife.
My mother was more of Agnes, and her beloved sister Aunt Adelaide is more of a Polly.
Their bond, total devotion to each other, made Agnes and Polly love story more believable.
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@Mary13 love this analysis of names,
How about Virgil ?
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Delete. (Repetitive.)
Yes, and I found it very real. Agnes is caught utterly by surprise and falls back on the one thing that is ingrained in her: manners.
It would be rude to create a scene, or even show an emotion that might make others uncomfortable. She writes to Elspeth at one point that they were raised to believe “that manners are preferable to feelings.”
@jerseysouthmomchess, nothing came to mind re Virgil’s name, except perhaps that he was a writer determined to create an epic work. 
But here’s one I feel confident about: The first part of “Seela” spelled backward is “A Lee.” She was such a climber --she didn’t want Archie so much as she wanted his last name.
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Yes I really appreciated the information on the other names. I like that she did that.
Speaking of names. I find it a little hard to believe that Agnes wasn’t aware she used anagrams to name the characters in her novels.
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I actually loved that! What is a revelation for the reader (Maud) is also a revelation for the author (Agnes).
It’s one of my favorite topics in writing – What does the author express that is true and meaningful, but of which they have no awareness because it comes from their subconscious? Is this even possible, or are we (the readers) extracting meaning where none exists?
Agnes reflects on this debate after reading Virgil’s novel:
I am no doubt his deepest and most careful reader. I have probably made connections in the book and had insights he hasn’t had himself. Or am I deluding myself? I suppose people who love a book always think they understand it best, when the whole point is that the author clamps a ring through the reader’s nose and leads him by a rope exactly where he wants to go (p.406).
i don’t agree with the “leads the reader by a rope” theory. An author is human, too, and presumably pouring a lot of him or herself into the work. It makes sense to me that there would be subliminal meanings that are more clear to the reader than the writer.
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I agree a reader can interpret something in a novel that the author didn’t intend or expect. We all take our own personal lives and experiences into a story which then impacts interpretation.
I still have a hard time accepting Agnes used anagram names without awareness, but I will agree that our subliminal brains can lead us to unexpected places. Agnes just seemed so specific and fact centered that the lack of awareness surprised me.
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The only aspect of the Franklin Square Girls novels that I found hard to believe was that Agnes was able to maintain anonymity. For one book in the pre-internet 60’s, maybe. But for a series stretching through the years, no way. Either a PhD student or an AI robot would have figured it out (not to equate the two 
).
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Steve King manage to write for 8 years with the Richard Bachman pseudonym, and was discovered because of his writing style. I don’t think there was much danger of that happening to Agnes since her kids books were likely very different and all set in Maine.
I think authors frequently put stuff subconciously in their books. A friend of mine who writes children’s books had her character wearing mirror sunglasses early on, she felt it was right, even though they weren’t particularly in style. She told me when she got to a scene where they turned out to be a plot element, she was quite surprised that she’d done it without knowing why.
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I was doubtful that the secret author would be able to receive mail, get paid etc without more people knowing.
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This is one of my favorite aspects of the book. How often are aging women depicted as real, complex, intelligent people?
I remember thinking BRAVA when, fairly late in the book, Agnes sat down on the ground for a while and carefully got herself up again.
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Maybe that was when she wandered away from the party? I remember being worried she was going to fall down and die before anyone discovered her. But it was Polly who kept having accidents. (I couldn’t entirely blame her kids for being worried.)
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