Saratoga Trunk by Edna Ferber

A book that has been on my shelves for a very long time. I read it for the Book Challenge by Erin, as a "book that has been made into a film". It was filmed with Ingrid Bergman and Gary Cooper, directed by Sam Wood. I have been trying to watch it, but am not able to find it anywhere (at least not for streaming).

It is a great read and has a lightness about the story. The novel starts in Saratoga where Colonel Clint Maroon and his wife Clio Dulaine attend the Saratoga season as usual. They are now in their 80s and still the most popular persons during the season. This year Clint Maroon has decided to tell the truth about himself and his wife. However, the gathered journalists do not want to hear. They just see the successful, beautiful couple, still in love with each other after all the years.

Instead, Ferber tells us the story of how Clio Dulaine, an illegitimate daughter of an aristocratic New Orleans Creol father and his beautiful mistress Rita Dulaine. When she happens to kill her lover, she, her sister and daughter have to leave New Orleans and Clio grows up with her mother, aunt, the maid Angélique Pluton and a dwarf manservant, Cupidon in Paris, France. When her mother and aunt dies she decides to go back to New Orleans. The somewhat mixed family enters, Clio moves in and renovates her mother's old house and settles down to become a nuisance to her father's family. There is a half sister ready to go out into society. Clio needs money and she knows how to get it.

She very soon meets a cowboy, Clint Maroon; tall and handsome who falls for Clio. Clio sees something special in him and they start a relationship. He lives on gambling and day by day. Clio has a more settled situation in mind. She wants to marry rich and not have to worry about anything more in her life.

Together with Maroon they plan a sejour during the Saratoga season. Clio is pretending to be a widow of a French aristocrat, Maroon is there as himself. In Saratoga the crème de la crème meets during the season, and there are not shortages of eligible, rich bachelors. Clio plays out her scheme as the full feathered actress that she is.

It is a totally charming story, intermingled with the fight for the control of the lucrative railway lines, being constructed at the times. It is exciting and as the people gathering in Saratoga, with gossips, relationships and a place at the top, they await the next move from Clio, as is the reader.

This is the first book I have read by Edna Ferber, and it makes you want more. It was published already in 1941, but the writing is easy and charming. The story grows slowly, and although you do know the end of the affair, she manages to capture your attention for the whole of the novel. It makes for more. I see some titles of her that I will try to find;  So Big (won the Pulitzer Prize), Show Boat, Cimarron, Come and Get It, Giant, Ice Palace. I think some of these titles have been made into films as well.