Reading California Fiction

FALSE WITNESS

    It’s often interesting to read books by famous authors written before they rose to prominence. Irving Stone (1903-1989), known for his biographical fiction, is a case in point. He first reached the bestseller list with Immortal Wife (1944) but only ran off a string wildly popular novels after Lust for Life (originally published in 1934) was turned into a successsful movie in 1956. The Agony and the Ecstasy (1961) is the best known of his later works. Like False Witness, Stone’s first novel, Pageant of Youth (1933), had nothing to do with historical figures. It focused instead on college students in Berkeley. I’ve skipped it so far because even Stone thought it was really bad.

    False Witness by Irving Stone. Doubleday, Doran (1940), 275 pp.
    In the years since his arrival in the 1860s, John Annister has become the most respected resident of Mission Valley, a small farming community north of Glendale. Everyone in the valley attends a single church, which John founded on the ninth commandment’s principle of absolute honesty. John lives contentedly on his ranch with his whiney daughter, Grace, and his spunky granddaughter, Margaret. Another long-time resident, August Hauser, has taken a different road to local influence. He’s bought land, made loans, sold crops and otherwise gathered unparalleled economic power. When the Widow Smithers accuses selfless household worker Mary Shoemaker of stealing fifty dollars, John is certain of her innocence. Then someone reports seeing August’s unruly daughter, Hilda, leaving the widow’s house. John suggests she might be the thief, an idea that her father moves forcefully to suppress.
    What Stone has created is closer to a parable than a well-rounded piece of fiction. The two main characters, John and August, are not reminiscent of real people. Instead, they stand for abstract qualities -- purity and corruption. Stone apparently wants readers to conclude that even fairly minor lies threaten to unravel the most tightly knit community. So honesty must prevail at all costs. But the lesson might be just the opposite, that small equivications must be tolerated for people to live together peacefully. August is open to compromise; John wants nothing but the truth. As he moves on toward martyrdom, John’s intransigence seems more like monomania than virtue. So the book raises more issues than Stone apparently understands. It might nevertheless find a small modern audience among those with a simple view of morality.

THE CHAPMAN REPORT

    Irving Wallace (1916-1990) apparently had an actual concern about people’s sexual problems. His first novel, The Sins of Philip Fleming (1959), which explored the effect of impotence on a guy trying to have an affair, never found much of an audience. But his next try, The Chapman Report, featuring six women involved in a variety of sexual liaisons, was an instant hit. It became the fourth best-selling American novel of 1960. And it led to a series of blockbusters -- The Prize (1962), The Man (1964), The Plot (1967), The Seven Minutes (1969), The Word (1972), and The Fan Club (1974) -- that made Wallace one of the most popular California novelists of all time.

    The Chapman Report by Irving Wallace. Simon and Schuster (1960), 371 pp.
    Dr. George Chapman, the famous sex researcher, is bringing his survey of married women to a posh Los Angeles suburb. Rounding up interview volunteers from the local women’s club is Kathleen Ballard, widow of a heroic test pilot. Sexually repressed herself, Kathleen is leery of the project. Still, she easily finds many prospective participants. Among them are near-newlywed Mary Ewing McManus, who remains oblivious to problems between her idealistic husband and her overbearing father; magazine writer Ursula Palmer, who currently makes more money than her torpid husband; pseudo-intellectual art connoisseur Teresa Harnish, who takes breaks from her well organized marriage to oggle muscular football players at the beach; dispirited housewife Sarah Goldsmith, who is learning that an extramarital affair brings problems of its own; and bored divorcée Naomi Shields, who tries to find momentary excitement in binge drinking and indiscriminate sex. The charismatic and single-minded Chapman doesn’t conduct interviews himself. Instead, he leaves that task to his increasingly exhausted subordinates: shy and divorced Horace van Duesen, angry and cynical Cass Miller, and thoughtful and lonely Paul Radford. Lacking fulfilling sex lives themselves, they may have trouble dealing objectively with the women they will interview.
    Although Wallace may have intended to write a serious book, what he produced is an almost perfect potboiler. It focuses on sex, a topic (one might say) of widespread interest. And it does so in a way that builds an audience. The title suggests some sort of connection with the Kinsey reports, but it doesn’t indicate whether readers will be in for scientific analysis or juicy exposé. The female characters in the novel are likely to be familiar in at least a generic way, since both they and the prospective readership come from the middle-class. Their very number sustains interest, because the action moves from one to another before their shallowness becomes annoying. Wallace also puts in a surprising amount of detail about survey methodology and presents (through a Chapman antagonist) an alternate approach to sex research. So the book manages thoughtfulness as well as titilation. The writing is clear and straightforward. The sex scenes are fairly explicit but never smutty. And everything works out in ways that readers fifty years ago probably found appropriate. Sex roles have changed a lot since then, so a modern audience is less likely to be appreciative. Readers interested in gender studies, however, may find the book fascinating.

THE BIG KNOCKOVER

    The brief survey of California’s pulp-fiction detectives comes to an end at the beginning, Dashiell Hammett’s stories from the 1920s. The protagonist, dubbed by someone (not the author, as far as I know) the Continental Op, is generally considered the first hard-boiled investigator. In these stories his world-view and narrative style have as much importance as the plot. Later detectives followed his lead and filled the pulps in the 1930s and 1940s. I tried to keep the survey under control by limiting my reading to published collections. With that in mind, here are some of the California pulp detectives and the dates they first appeared: Bill Lennox (1933), Dan Turner (1934), Philip Marlowe (1935), Ellen Patrick, the Domino Lady (1936), and Steve Midnight (1940).

    The Big Knockover by Dashiell Hammett. Random House (1966), 355 pp.
    This collection contains ten stories, seven of which are set in California. The seven first appeared in Black Mask during the 1920s. Six might be called novellas since they run about 30,000 words. All relate the adventures of a nameless operative in the San Francisco office of the Continental Detective Agency. This character, a “little fat guy” (p. 353) who has come to be known as the Continental Op, narrates the stories. He employs a flat and unemotional style which displays a cool wit and reflects an attitude of world-weary cynicism. The first five tales feature wealthy people (or their daughters) who get into the standard kinds of trouble -- robbery, murder, blackmail, kidnapping, and smuggling. The last two tell of a coordinated though not quite credible attack on downtown banks and the Op’s attempt to apprehend its mastermind.
    Because the stories are relatively long, a lot happens before the cases are solved. Hammett has the time to add subplots, present an array of different characters, and move events from one setting to another. During action sequences the body count rises quickly, a situation that bothers the narrator not at all. Readers may be surprised that the Op is not a private eye in quite the same way as later fictional detectives. True, he’s dedicated to his work and has no personal life. But he’s something of a bureaucrat as well, supervised by the agency’s district manager and giving orders to a troop of subordinates. He seems to command greater resources than the local police, whose officers are deferential rather than troublesome. In a way then, the Op is more reminiscent of Jerry Boyne, the bank security contractor in The Million-Dollar Suitcase (1921) and later novels, than he is of, say, Philip Marlowe. While the stories are sometimes a bit difficult to follow, fans of hard-boiled detectives and novella-length fiction are likely to enjoy the book.

THE CASE FILES OF DAN TURNER, HOLLYWOOD DETECTIVE

    The Case Files of Dan Turner, Hollywood Detective by Robert Leslie Bellem. Pulpville Press (2009), 317 pp.
    This collection contains twenty stories of the many hundreds written between 1934 and 1941 by Robert Leslie Bellem. They run about 10,000 words and (with one exception) first appeared in the pulp magazine, Spicy Detective. All feature Dan Turner, a free-lance P. I. who deals primarily with characters in the movie business. Turner narrates the stories in a breezy style that employs short, snappy sentences, zany metaphors, and a plethora of slang terms, many of which have disappeared from common usage. He especially enjoys describing women, most of whom are beautiful and barely clad. And he doesn’t just describe them. Unlike nearly every other fictional detective in the 1930s, Turner has no qualms about taking a sexual breather in the middle of an investigation. Nor is he committed to any purpose higher than making money and staying alive. Even so, he solves crimes and apprehends culprits as successfully as his more dedicated colleagues. Bellem seems more at home in this collection of short fiction than in his novel, Blue Murder. Readers who don’t demand clever plots and well-rounded characters may well enjoy these stories’ concoction of cynicism and silliness.

AT THE STROKE OF MIDNIGHT

    At the Stroke of Midnight by John K. Butler. Adventure House (1998), 233 pp.
    This collection of nine stories features a trouble-prone L. A. cabbie nicknamed Steve Midnight. The stories first appeared during the early 1940s in Dime Detective and range in length from roughly 12,000 to 24,000 words. In the book they are accompanied by original illustrations and advertisements. Unlike many other pulp-fiction crime fighters, Steve’s job has nothing to do with law enforcement. But because he drives the late shift and works mostly in scuzzy beach neighborhoods south of Santa Monica, he runs into serious wrongdoing without any effort. He just picks up passengers and soon someone turns up dead. The ensuing plot twists are so complicated that Steve, the first-person narrator, often must provide lengthy explanations before the stories end. Settings reinforce the noirish tone. Not only does most of the action occur at night, but fog and rain add to the murkiness. Steve, more world-weary than cynical, is pretty much a loner. The many attractive women he meets stay off-limits for various reasons. Only Pat Regan, the irascible dispatcher, and Captain Hollister, the usually friendly police officer, are recurring characters. All in all, the stories are substantial and well crafted. They should appeal to fans of pulp mysteries. This book, incidentally, is the only one by John K. Butler (1908-1964). He published short stories steadily through the late 1930s. Then instead of trying longer form fiction, he switched to movies and television, eventually amassing dozens of writing credits in both media.

HOLLYWOOD GIRL

    Hollywood Girl by J. P. McEvoy. Simon and Schuster (1929), 243 pp.
    Although she’s only nineteen, recently successful Broadway showgirl Dixie Dugan can’t find work. Boyfriend Jimmy Doyle is trying to put together a play for her but is having no success. Dixie learns that Hollywood producer Fritz Buelow is in town filming scenes for his allegorical epic, Sinning Lovers. It’s her chance to get into the movies. Pretending to be a reporter, she soon meets Buelow as well as his current squeeze, Chiquita Tortilla, and nice but inane songwriter Mickey O’Keefe. Dixie cleverly gets a screen test without asking for it, passes easily and sets out for Hollywood.
    This is the second of three satirical novels featuring Dixie Dugan. The prototypical gold digger, Dixie’s smart, cynical and always planning her next move. And she’s talented enough to have a serious chance for stardom. McEvoy spends most of the book showing how difficult that could be at a time when studios were coping with the coming of sound films. The author adopts an interesting narrative strategy. He presents the story mostly with Dixie’s letters and diary entries, other documents (primarily telegrams, publicity releases, and newspaper articles) and passages of dialogue arranged like those in a screenplay. In Chapter Six, however, he goes straight into Dixie’s mind and rolls out a stream of consciousness that lasts seventeen pages without any punctuation. McEvoy isn’t James Joyce, of course, and this book isn’t more than well observed light entertainment. Crammed with show-biz slang from eighty years ago, it’s still a fun read that fans of Hollywood fiction are likely to enjoy.

YOUNG MAN WITH A HORN

    Young Man with a Horn by Dorothy Baker. Houghton Mifflin (1938), 243 pp.
    Rick Martin grows up in Los Angeles without making much of an impression on anyone. He receives little attention from his guardians and has no interest in school. He’s quiet, self-contained and unambitious. Then at fourteen Rick becomes interested in music and teaches himself to play the piano. While working in a pool hall, he meets Smoke Jordan, four years older and hoping for a career as a drummer. Despite differences in race -- Rick is white and Smoke is black -- the two  become friends. Outside a South Central nightclub they hang out listening to jazz pianist Jeff Williams and his band. Rick soon switches to the trumpet, and his talent blossoms into self-expression.
    Readers will have no trouble getting a handle on this book. Baker’s chatty narrator summarizes the entire story in a brief prologue. The author wants to emphasize not what happens but how it happens. The prologue also lays out themes: “the gap between [Rick’s] musical ability and his ability to fit it to his own life; . . . the difference between the demands of expression and the demands of life here below; . . . the difference between good and bad in a native American art form -- jazz music.” (p. 3 of the 1946 edition) It’s true that the book is known as the first novel to focus on jazz and as a fictional account of Bix Beiderbecke’s short career in the 1920s. But it’s also a meditation on race. Rick is one of the few white protagonists in American fiction essentially raised by African Americans. They are his friends, his mentors and eventually the only people who care about him. They are so central to the story, in fact, that the book is nearly half over before Rick leaves South Central. The racial theme, which garnered little comment when the novel was originally published, may add to its appeal today.

THE INTERLOPERS

    The Interlopers by Griffing Bancroft. Bancroft Co. (1917), 397 pp.
    Just out of Harvard Medical School, Robert Hollington arrives in Rosario, a small and prosperous agricultural community near San Diego, to assume the practice of highly respected Dr. Alling. Hollington has much to get used to, but his main challenge is earning the trust of his new neighbors, especially influential rancher Sam Coulters, whose daughter Frances quickly catches his eye. Hollington’s helpfulness during a ferocious storm wins him friends. But it also obliterates the local citrus crop and leaves several ranchers with no way to make mortgage payments. With the help of realtor J. P. Butler, the Nippon Merchandise Company seizes the opportunity to purchase land for Japanese immigrants. Residents fear the new arrivals will ruin the life they have known.
    Bancroft presents a complicated take on Japanese immigration, farming and land ownership, which California ranchers saw as major social and economic threats in the early decades of the last century. He introduces a variety of characters and story lines to delineate the issue, often moving away from Hollington to illustrate different aspects of the question. Bancroft sympathizes with the white folks. But he ascribes no devious motives to the Japanese (unlike Wallace Irwin in Seed of the Sun) and assigns a measure of responsibility to the white businessmen who profit from the situation. The most interesting conflict is represented by Hollington, who must weigh his duty to the Japanese as human beings against his obligation to the community as a threatened entity. The book probably attempts to do too much. Even a writer more accomplished than Bancroft -- this was his only novel -- might have struggled to put everything together. Although it may not be entirely successful, the book is an important document in the ongoing story of race relations in California.

LISTS UPDATED!

    Exciting news! I’ve updated the author and publication date lists (linked on the sidebar). I’ve also given the subsidiary lists a uniform appearance with entries separated by single spacing rather than the double spacing that Typepad assigns when the Enter key is used to separate paragraphs. Changing hundreds of HTML codes was just as much fun as I imagined. Anyway, I hope these changes make the blog more accessible.

MAX LATIN: DETECTIVE FROM NOWHERE

      So I thought it might be interesting to check out more of the short stories from pulp magazines. I’ve been through one whole issue of Saucy Movie Tales and the entire series of Domino Lady stories. But I was hoping for something more literary. Maybe the collections wouldn't rival those of Hammett (for example, The Continental Op, or The Big Knockover, to name a couple I've read) or Chandler (e.g., Trouble Is My Business, The Simple Art of Murder, Pickup on Noon Street) but at least they would be by authors appreciated (and reprinted) today. Many notable pulp fiction writers lived in Los Angeles, so I figured finding stories set in California wouldn’t be much of a problem.
     This small project got off to a good start with W. T. Ballard’s Hollywood Troubleshooter, a fairly entertaining collection of stories featuring a single character, Bill Lennox, and settings clearly in California. Next up was The Adventures of Max Latin by Norbert Davis, a prolific pulp writer who spent most of his career in Los Angeles. The quirky hero of these stories, Max Latin, is a private detective who works out of a sleazy restaurant. Encyclopedia of Pulp Fiction Writers assured me that the restaurant is in L. A. and the stories were like other Hollywood comedy thrillers (p. 78). So I confidently shelled out an unusually large amount of money for a recent paperback and looked forward to its arrival from an internet bookseller.
     The book showed up with no problem. I started in on the first story and was reading along happily until I realized something was missing. There was no mention (or even hint) of Los Angeles -- or of anyplace else, for that matter. The other stories were the same. I don’t know whether Davis routinely omitted geographical specifics from his short stories or whether he deliberately avoided them only for Latin’s adventures. Either way, I’m scratching Max Latin from my list of L. A. detectives. It’s possible, of course, that I’ve missed arcane associations known only to true Angelenos. If so, I’d love to know what they are.