Allan Durst Sr.

Allan Durst Sr. enters the novel as the man who broke Maddie Morgenstern's heart in high school, but the full weight of his presence in her life is far heavier than a teenage romance. He is a married painter, the father of Allan Durst Junior, and the husband of a famous artist mother who paints large abstracts that hang in museums. Allan Sr. himself is described as a competent painter of portraits, specializing in Baltimore dowagers. His affair with Maddie began when she was seventeen, a summer that would leave permanent marks on her life: the portrait he painted of her, the pregnancy he helped her end, and the abandonment that came just before her prom. When Maddie later recalls him, she thinks of him as the prize that Allan Sr. had insisted on having for himself — a girl who ceased to exist the moment the painting was finished, a girl that no one, not even Milton, could ever have again.

Identity and Background

Allan Durst Sr. is introduced through the eyes of Wally Weiss, Maddie's high school classmate, who observes that Maddie, then Maddie Morgenstern, ran with a very fast, goyish crowd that included Allan Durst. The Durst family was notable enough that Maddie's parents, though shrewd enough not to fight a high school romance, had even invited the Durst parents to their home for Shabbos. Allan Sr.'s wife was a famous artist, painting huge abstracts that hung in museums, while he was the lesser talent, a competent painter of portraits who specialized in Baltimore dowagers. This dynamic — the wife as the celebrated artist, the husband as the adequate portraitist — frames Allan Sr. as a man who sought out young women like Maddie as his own private trophies, subjects he could possess and paint. His son, Allan Durst Junior, would later attend Yale, a fact Allan Sr. mentioned often, and the father's pride in his son's pedigree contrasts with his predatory treatment of the teenage Maddie.

The Summer of Seventeen

When Maddie was seventeen, Allan Durst Sr. painted her portrait, a debutante's likeness that would later surface for sale in a Baltimore gallery. Looking at that painting years later, Maddie has to admit to herself that he was a terribly mediocre artist — the brushwork was proficient, nothing more, lacking any spark or wit now that she was not gazing at it through a love-struck haze. The summer of her affair with Allan Sr. also left her pregnant, and it was Allan Sr. who found her a doctor, a basement office where the seventeen-year-old Maddie underwent an abortion. This is the ghost of a child she tries never to think about, the secret that Milton could never accept, the sin for which she believes she was punished by having only one son when she had wanted a houseful of children, at least three, at least one daughter. Allan Sr. dropped Maddie right before prom, leaving her weeping in an empty classroom, where Wally Weiss found her and offered himself as her date as a greater insult to Allan.

The New York Reunion

Sixteen years after the affair, when Maddie is married to Milton and struggling with her inability to conceive, she discovers that Allan Sr.'s portrait of her is for sale at a local gallery. She goes to see it and is hurt by what she finds: the girl in the painting had ceased to exist when the painting was finished, and could never be retrieved. Maddie asks the gallery owner how the painting came into his possession, implying that its provenance was questionable, that it was clearly a portrait of her that had gone missing from her parents' home. She assumes it would be Allan's wife, forcing him to purge his studio of his trophies, but it is Allan himself, and the address listed is in New York, on the Upper East Side, as she always suspected. Two weeks later, she takes the bus to New York, telling Milton she is going on a B'nai B'rith trip to see Carousel, staying at a midtown hotel, sharing a room with Eleanor Rosengren — a lie on top of a lie that would crumble if Milton ever thought to say anything to Eleanor or her husband, though Maddie knows by then that he will not, because he is simply not interested in her day-to-day life.

The Snowy April Encounter

Maddie stands outside the address she has for Allan in April, and it is snowing. She has a book with her, as if that would provide an adequate excuse for standing on a snowy New York corner. Eventually Allan comes out, hatless, looking his age, which is forty-four. He had always looked his age, actually — it was just that she could not see it when she was seventeen. He is attractive, though; she had not been wrong about that. She plants herself in his path, ready to exclaim how small the world is, but the moment her eyes meet his, she cannot pretend. She begins to cry, and not in a pretty way. Without a word, he takes her by the elbow and leads her to his apartment. He fixes her a strong drink, puts together a late lunch for her out of things in the icebox, makes small talk. She attempts to explain about the painting, tries to recover her pride by claiming she had been contacted by the gallery owner, who was nervous about whether he had the right to sell it. Allan's patient support of her subterfuge makes her feel worse in a way. He tells her his wife is in Mexico, because she had decided she could not paint in New York in the cold-weather months, and that Allan Jr., of course, is at college — Yale. He muses that his son is still a boy, and yet Maddie, the same age, is every inch a woman. He looks at, but does not comment upon, the gold band on her hand.

The Affair's Aftermath and Maddie's Reckoning

Making love with Allan Durst Sr. in New York was not a mistake that time, Maddie later reflects. She had broken his spell, and that was why she could finally conceive with Milton. Given how easily she had gotten pregnant the summer she was seventeen, she had expected it to be easy at twenty, too, but Seth was to be the first and last pregnancy she carried to term. It is only twenty years later that she sees how close to disaster she had flown, how easily her life could have been upended by their affair and even the one-time coupling in New York. Why had she taken such risks? At least Allan was wrong: her sensuality was not a fleeting thing, a gift he bestowed on her for one brief season. It had always been hers, it was hers now. If she ever did marry again, when she had the luxury of choosing for herself, she would know that kind of passion in marriage. It had to be possible. She tries never to think about the ghost of a child left behind in the basement office of the doctor that Allan Sr. had found for her the summer she was seventeen, how her heart felt as if it folded in half when anyone said it was a shame that Seth had to grow up an only child. Milton might have forgiven her for being with another man before marriage, but what happened in that doctor's office when she was seventeen would be something he could never accept. Still, she had been punished for her sins, had she not? Only the one son when she had wanted a houseful of children, at least three, at least one daughter. She could have been such a good mother to a daughter.

Narrative Role and Significance

Allan Durst Sr. functions as the novel's emblem of the predatory older man who takes what he wants from a young woman and discards her, leaving her to carry the consequences alone. His portrait of Maddie becomes a recurring object that forces her to confront her past — first when she sees it in the gallery and recognizes that the girl in the painting no longer exists, and later when she reflects on the risks she took and the child she lost. He is also a contrast to the other men in Maddie's life: Milton, the perfectly nice lawyer husband who is not interested in her day-to-day life; Ferdie Platt, the young black cop whose love for her is impossible on many levels; and Wallace Wright, who asks her for a date decades later. Allan Sr. is the one man who saw Maddie as a prize to be possessed, and his legacy is the secret she carries — the abortion, the ghost of a child, the knowledge that even good girls make mistakes when they're in love, but they don't deserve to die for them. Maddie got out alive; Cleo Sherwood hadn't. Allan Sr.'s significance lies in how his actions shaped Maddie's understanding of herself, her sensuality, and her capacity for passion — and in how she ultimately reclaims that sensuality as her own, not a gift he bestowed on her for one brief season.