Cleo was a wild child, proud and devious, leader of the pack consisting of herself and her three sisters. Born into a poor southern family, teenage Cleo yearns for a better life and heads off to Boston where she meets the man she will marry, Bart.
Bart is a successful businessman, owner of a fruit wholesale business, specializing in bananas. When Cleo looks at Bart all she can see is dollar signs. Bart has what Cleo wants: money. So even though he is much older than she is, even though she doesn't really care for him, she still marries him.
But Cleo is missing her sisters. She cons Bart into renting a large home and then she cons her sisters into leaving their homes and spouses and coming to Boston for a visit. But what she really wants is for the sisters and their children to stay. Her lies convince one sister Lily that her husband Victor is a dangerous and vicious drunk. Her lies convince her other sister Serena that her husband Robert is shiftless and unreliable. And her sister Charity's husband Ben has a wandering eye, and without his wife nearby to keep him in line, he takes up with another woman. So Cleo neatly wreaks all three of her sisters' marriages and keeps them by her side in Boston.
But a life built on lies and tricks and deviousness does not prosper. Cleo's extravagance catches up with all of them as Bart's business starts to decline due to new competition. Cleo's eyes are finally opened to her destructiveness as her marriage fails and her sisters leave to make their own way in the world.
It's hard to like a story where the main character is as unappealing as Cleo Judson. I disliked her from the very beginning. She is sneaky, grasping, conceited and blind to her own faults. She has very few redeeming qualities. Even her love of her sisters is self-serving as she destroys their marriages without a qualm.
Reading about Cleo made me wonder if the author actually knew someone like Cleo in reality. Otherwise, how could she invent such a creature?
There is an afterword by Adelaide Cromwell in which she explains that several of the characters were based on real Bostonians. If Cleo was based on a real person, I pity the people who had her in their lives!
Review by Susan Coventry / Reading World.
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