A Search for America by Frederick Philip Grove

First published: 1927

Type of work: Bildungsroman

Time of work: The early 1900’s

Locale: Toronto, New York City, New England, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and the Dakotas

Principal Characters:

• Philip Branden, the protagonist, a young, upper-class Swedish immigrant
• Frank Carral, a waiter in a Toronto restaurant
• Dr. Goodwin, a humane and generous man who puts Branden back on his feet
• The Hermit, a recluse who gives Branden a new focus on life by saying nothing but “I reckon”
• Ivan, a Russian immigrant who assists Branden’s conversion from tramp to hobo

The Novel

Philip Branden, a young Swede from an upper-class background, arrives in Montreal broke and “determined not to form a little island of Europe in the American environment.” Possessing no practical skills, he must begin his search for economic stability in Toronto working in a cheap restaurant, first as a busboy and later as a waiter. He finds himself caught up in a squalid, conniving environment where “sharp practice” always aims to advance the individual at the expense of others. He feels compelled to move on to New York City. There he finds the same crassness, and he is quickly stripped of his money in a crooked card game.

After a traumatic revelation at the beach which leaves him with a sense of the insignificance of his existence, he sets out on a quest for personal insight. At first, he turns to the writings of Abraham Lincoln, Henry David Thoreau, and James Russell Lowell for guidance, while at the same time trying a new career as a book salesman. At this point, he becomes sickened by the grasping materialism of the city and abandons the urban for the rural, isolating himself from mankind for three months.

His guide books are The Odyssey (c. 800 B.C.) and the New Testament. The first describes a geographical quest; the second defines the quest for spiritual awareness. His geographical quest takes him through New England into Pennsylvania, first following the river valleys and then, finally, taking to a raft.

In one of the novel’s most remarkable scenes, Branden encounters a hermit and saves him from drowning. This encounter leads him to the conclusion that in order to discover his soul he must return to the essentials of life and ignore the accidentals, and he once again reenters the world of men and women, spending a season as a hobo and harvest hand, learning about humanity and seeking a new life of service to others. His final commitment is to assist new immigrants “to build their partial views of America into total views.”

The Characters

While it is generally assumed that A Search for America is a fictionalization of Frederick Philip Grove’s own immigrant experience in North America, there is confusion on this matter. Grove concealed his European past from everyone, including his family. Research by Douglas O. Spettigue published in 1973 identified Grove as a German, Felix Paul Greve, who had faked suicide and fled to America. No one is yet certain what Grove was doing in the years between 1909, when he arrived in Canada, and 1913, when he surfaced again as a teacher in Manitoba. The events described in the novel have a solid feel of authentic experience, which suggests that autobiographical material has been incorporated.

Branden is twenty years old when he leaves Liverpool for Montreal. A self-expressed “insufferable snob and coxcomb,” he finds himself cast loose in the world after his father’s fortune runs dry. As he moves through America, he must descend to the bottom of the social scale, cast off his upper-class, European conditioning, and confront his personal spirit. The novel is subtitled “The Odyssey of an Immigrant,” and in true Odyssian fashion, Branden moves through the novel encountering shysters, con men, hoboes, hermits, saints, and sinners in his search for the spirit of Lincoln’s America. Along the way, readers watch him strip away the historical past of Europe and move on to the acceptance of a future based upon ethical response to his fellowman.

Since the novel is an odyssey, few other characters are onstage long enough to become three-dimensional. There are, however, several noteworthy exceptions: Frank, the waiter in Toronto who first demonstrates how to twist the rules to make bigger tips; Whiskers, the busboy of twenty years, still hoping to move on to a waiter’s station; and the Hermit, whom Branden saves from drowning in a Waldenlike pond and who hosts Branden for several days after the rescue without ever uttering a word. Like Branden, readers assume the Hermit to be deaf and mute. When Branden finally tells the man that it is time to say good-bye, the man says, “I reckon.” Branden ponders the response and finally resolves to get back to civilization.

Other equally memorable characters include Wilbur, Tinker, McMurchy, champions of the hard-sell book spiel; Dr. Goodwin, the true Lincolnesque samaritan, who takes an ailing and penniless Branden under his wing; and Ivan, the Russian immigrant who instructs Branden in the fine arts of “riding the rods” as a hobo.

Critical Context

Grove was the first major Canadian novelist to practice realism. Grove’s perceptive eye for the detail of setting and character is at its best in this novel, which is generally thought to be his finest work. In it, he set forth a fable that would recur in novels such as Settlers of the Marsh (1925) and Fruits of the Earth (1933). Both of these novels continue Grove’s preoccupation with the land and the quest for personal goals. In The Master of the Mill (1944), he turned to the question of monopoly capitalism, but the novel still follows the fable of A Search for America.

Bibliography

Spettigue, Douglas O. F.P.G.: The European Years, 1973.

Stobie, Margaret. Frederick Philip Grove, 1972.