Reading California Fiction

NOVEMBER GRASS

    November Grass by Judy Van der Veer. Longmans, Green (1940), 246 pp.
    November, between the end of fall harvest and the start of the rainy season, offers a break from routine work on the large, hilly ranch near San Diego. For the tall and lanky twenty-three-year-old woman who lives there with her parents, it is a time to contemplate life on the ranch -- the weather, the landscape, and especially the farm animals. Juno the hound, Pete the old horse, Flaxie the yearling filly and Joseph the Bull are closer to her than the people she knows. She revels in the smallest happenings on the ranch, has a passing interest in the nearby town, and neither knows nor cares about the world beyond.
    The book contains her November musings. The third-person narrator distills her thoughts about ranch life into lyrical descriptions of her environment and succinct observations about the world. She identifies strongly with animals, imbuing them with human thoughts and feelings. People, on the other hand, she finds detestable as a group, though she appreciates the traditions of Indians and Mexican Americans. She possesses, in short, what some today would call an evolved consciousness. Perhaps as a way to highlight these ideas, Van der Veer disembodies the protagonist, keeping her nameless and calling her only “the girl.” While the girl’s beliefs may be advanced in some respects, her detachment from the rest of humanity places her on the edge of psychosis. Readers thus face the challenge of separating the message and the messenger. The book won’t appeal to everyone, but those attracted to its themes will probably enjoy (And, incidentally, it's back in print.)

TURN OFF THE SUNSHINE

    Turn Off the Sunshine by Timothy G. Turner. Caxton Printers (1942), 288 pp.
    This book contains twenty-one short stories set in Los Angeles. Their length runs from about 1,200 words to about 5,000. Most use a third-person narrator. Each story stands on its own and includes no reference to others in the collection. Turner’s style is clear, simple and often terse. The book’s subtitle indicates the thrust of his stories: Tales of Los Angeles on the Wrong Side of the Tracks. For Turner that pretty much means downtown as it was between the world wars. The stories usually focus on a single character and a single event. Each title identifies the protagonist and gives an idea of the problem he or she faces, for example, “The Waitress Who Lost Her Sailor,” “The Reporter Who Became a Hero,” and so on. The characters are just plain folks. They come from different ethnic backgrounds but share much in common. They don’t have much money. They live in beat-up apartment buildings or rooming houses. Excitement seldom enters their lives. Turner generally aims at what might be considered reportage, just recounting events without judgments or trickery. He’s not merely telling shaggy dog stories, however. He wants readers to sympathize with his characters. Sometimes, in fact, he seems to stage events to illustrate the difficulties that people have in making connections with one another. Sentimentality occasionally creeps in, but all in all the book succeeds in presenting the glamourless L. A. that most fiction set in the city misses. (The book, incidentally, has slipped out of copyright and can be downloaded at the Internet Archive.)

LOW TIDE

    Low Tide by John Truesdell. Dodd, Mead (1947), 240 pp.
    Once a mechanic and now primarily a drunk, Kelly hasn’t had a steady job for years. He lives in a small apartment in Venice with his large family: his elderly mother, his long-suffering wife, Jane, and his three daughters -- lethargic Mary, lively and devious Judy, and lovely but speechless Penny. They scrimp by on welfare payments. Kelly likes to discuss life and society with Tracy, a voluble left-winger who lives under the pier. A couple other friends help him get along, Pincus, his landlord, and George, the owner of a lunch room on the beach. Like Kelly himself, his friends have no idea how to solve his drinking problem; they just tolerate it with good humor. It’s the arrival of Miss Henderson, a new welfare worker just out of USC, that will lead to major changes in Kelly’s life.
    This novel has a superficial resemblance to Cannery Row, in that it features a group of guys in their thirties and forties who have minimal social responsibilities. Like Steinbeck, Truesdell keeps the tone light. His characters have good intentions and, when things go wrong, preposterous rationalizations. Yet, as the presence of many important female figures suggests, Truesdell wants to do more than describe the charms of social isolation. Kelly has responsibilities -- or at least he would have them if he could ever get sober. His drunken interludes are more sad than amusing. His liquor-induced plans are pathetic rather than silly. Although Truesdell uses a third-person narrator, he convincingly presents the muddled thoughts produced in an alcoholic fog. Kelly emerges as a decent fellow with a big problem. Assuming the ironic ending is not meant as a prescription for society, the book leaves readers wondering what to do about alcoholism (or any addiction) among the poor.

THE MYSTERY WOMAN

    Alice MacGowan (1858-1947) and Perry Newberry (1870-1938) were prominent members of the Carmel artistic community. Both were established writers when they arrived in 1908 and 1910 respectively, and both continued their careers in the rustic little town. They collaborated on a magazine serial in 1921. A year later they launched a series of five detective novels featuring Jerry Boyne, a character whom Newberry had introduced in a shorter work several years before. Boyne became the protagonist of what was (as far as I can tell) California’s first detective series. His connection to the most famous of his San Francisco colleagues, Dashiell Hammett’s Continental Op, has apparently not been explored by literary historians. (Hey, Hammett and Newberry could have been drinking buddies. Who knows?)

    The Mystery Woman by Alice MacGowan and Perry Newberry. Frederick A. Stokes (1924), 303 pp.
    Jerry Boyne, head of a large San Francisco detective agency, is hired to find the leader of an international business syndicate who has disappeared on his way to Siberia. Boyne gets the investigation underway but suspects that Price Meade, the man's private secretary, is withholding information. Meanwhile, Skeet Thornhill, spunky young reporter, asks Boyne to help a man who has been found in a waterfront hotel room with a corpse. Boyne succeeds, but only after slugging police sergeant Ed Rance. The next day Meade himself disappears. Boyne sends out agents to look for him, then intervenes to aid the alluring Mimi Cesana and her Italian acting company. He soon learns that these seemingly unrelated incidents are closely connected.
    Fans of hard-boiled detective fiction may feel that The Mystery Woman takes them into a parallel world. Some aspects of the book are startlingly familiar; others are unexpectedly strange. The urban ambience is almost Chandleresque in its large cast of socially and ethnically diverse characters and its wide assortment of big-city settings. Boyne, like many other detectives, is the story’s narrator. His approach is down to earth, and he’s comfortable with slang. What’s jarring are the stodginess and opacity of his style. In particular, the descriptions of action sequences are disappointingly limp. Boyne views everyone with appropriate cynicism, again like other detectives -- except women, toward whom he’s chivalrous and protective. So what might be a fatal flaw for protagonists of hard-boiled novels becomes a redeeming virtue in this story. Ordinary readers might find the book mildly entertaining, but those interested in the evolution of the detective novel -- especially if their reading in the pre-Hammett era is limited -- will probably be intrigued.

DOCTOR PARADISE

    Doctor Paradise by Jay Dratler. Popular Library (1957), 125 pp.
    Peter Malyon is a successful neurosurgeon in the hard-to-place fictional town of Topham City, California. He barely disguises his contempt for the hospital’s chief surgeon and effortlessly outshines Fred Barrett, his competitive young assistant. Barrett at least has a girlfriend, pretty nurse Benny Lake; Malyon has been too busy for women -- until now. His newest patient is beautiful twenty-year-old Cynthia Vickers, deaf and mute daughter of oil magnate Martin Vickers. Malyon fears he caused her condition a dozen years before and believes brain surgery can reverse it. The operation is successful, but Martin Vickers has a heart attack while waiting for the results. Before dying he makes Malyon his daughter’s guardian. Malyon wants to help the young woman but realizes that he is sexually attracted to her.
    Readers will need to suspend disbelief for the story to make sense. But even then they may wonder whether Totheroh is unaware of the issues raised in the novel or is just unwilling to deal with them. He presents Cynthia Vickers as the woman every man wants. Malyon, his colleagues, even Barrett, who already has an exceptional girlfriend, are powerfully attracted to her. Her fascinating trait is not her beauty but her combination of intelligence and ignorance. Emerging from twelve years in a walking coma, she knows nothing and can be taught anything. From this icky conception of the perfect woman, the story proceeds to downright creepiness when Malyon takes Cynthia home and becomes her teacher and would-be lover. The ensuing complications are presented ambiguously. Only in the last ten pages does Totheroh make his attitude clear. And even then readers may suspect he had been planning another ending.

WILD ORCHARD

   Wild Orchard by Dan Totheroh. George H. Doran (1927), 286 pp.
    As other members of her large family have been doing for years, teenage fruit-picker Trina Marchio follows the crops north from spring to fall, then spends the winter in Los Angeles. Her handsome father is still something of a stud, but her mother, after seventeen childbirths, has few interests beyond work and her children. Trina, pretty, fun-loving and adventurous, has no intention of ending up like her mother. This year she and her friend Julie Roni are participating in the Ramona pageant in Hemet. There Trina meets actor Jimmie Cardoni, who seduces her with the promise of a film career. After he dumps her, she heads back to the fields with a more instrumental and less romantic view of the opposite sex.
    First, Totheroh deserves credit for writing anything about migrant workers, who were not a favorite subject for middle-class readers in the 1920s. His attitude toward their transient existence is surprisingly romantic, but his descriptions are realistic. Depictions of Saturday night dates in Fresno are especially vivid. Totheroh doesn’t quite trust his ability here, however, so the narrator often intervenes to analyze Trina’s feelings. As the story continues, the author increasingly seems to be manipulating events, a sure sign that his trajectory for the narrative is sailing off in the wrong direction. New characters show up, the setting changes dramatically, and Trina’s clear-headedness disappears. By the end the novel has sunk into Victorian mawkishness. Still, the book offers a lively read for the first 150 pages and remains of historical interest.

SPIDERWEB

    Spiderweb by Robert Bloch. Ace Books (1954), 157 pp.
    Eddie Haines is ready to head back to Des Moines. He has been in Hollywood more than two months, and his acting career has yet to get off the ground. Then he meets Professor Otto Hermann, who has an unusual role for him to play. Herman needs a front man for a bogus therapy scam. Soon Eddie will become Judson Roberts, psychological consultant. He’ll dig out embarrassing information from easily duped clients, then Hermann will arrange blackmail. Eddie’s not comfortable in his new career, but before long he’s in too deep to back out.
    Robert Bloch (1917-1994) wrote two dozen novels and hundreds of short stories during his fifty-year career. He specialized in science fiction and horror stories, the most famous of which was Psycho (1959). Spiderweb was only his second novel, so perhaps he was not yet on his game. The set-up is implausible. The protagonist (and narrator) often suffers from bouts of slow-wittedness. The professor is not scary and has too many henchmen. The blackmail scheme goes awry with undue speed. And the action is forced and unconvincing. Still, the book reads easily enough and contains nothing really painful. Its send-up of Hollywood’s therapy addicts is mildly amusing. Readers who set their expectations fairly low might well enjoy the book.

DEEP VALLEY

    Deep Valley by Dan Totheroh. L. B. Fischer (1942), 312 pp.
    Libbie Saul lives with her sickly mother and imperious father in the isolated coastal area north of Big Sur. Her parents, who haven’t spoken to each other for years, care little about her boredom and loneliness. Libbie’s only diversion are her hikes into a hidden valley, where she imagines life in an old, abandoned house. Her situation changes dramatically when a crew of convict laborers arrives to work on the coast highway. Much to her surprise, she is garnering admiring glances from the men, especially one called Barry. But a relationship between the two seems impossible -- or at least perilous.
    What Totheroh is going for here is a classic love story between two lonely and emotionally stunted people. They appear at first to be mismatched, but they share a state of imprisonment: Barry by the government, Libbie by her surroundings. Neither is prepared for great passion. Totheroh tells the tale from Libbie’s viewpoint. Readers learn of her thoughts and feelings directly and of his through her perceptions. The author is sympathetic to the lovers and eventually to the minor characters as well. He uses a clear and restrained style, presumably realizing that the the novel will crumble under the weight of melodramatic prose. As a result, some readers may find the story moves too slowly and quietly. Totheroh’s final reimagining of the valley metaphor may also be disconcerting. In any case, the book pretty much accomplishes what it sets out to do. It is likely to appeal to anyone seeking a love story told outside the conventions of the romance genre.
    [Jacket image courtesy of ReadInk, Los Angeles, California.]

THE ALCOHOLICS

    The Alcoholics by Jim Thompson. Lion Books (1953), 127 pp.
    Los Angeles psychiatrist Peter Murphy runs a small and almost bankrupt sanitarium for alcoholics. If he doesn't agree to provide long-term storage for recently lobotomized Humphrey Van Twyne, he’ll need to close down. But Murphy fears that accepting money when there’s no hope of successful treatment would seriously compromise his principles. It’s not that he’s having much luck with his other patients, each of whom seems more determined to sneak drinks than to participate in his recovery. Helping Murphy is a small staff: Lucretia, the sadistic nurse with sexual problems; Rufus, the attendant who has his own ideas about therapy; and Josephine, the cook with an abundance of folk wisdom. Murphy fecklessly contemplates suicide as he gets ready for what will become an unusually eventful day.
    Jim Thompson’s reputation may set up false expectations for The Alcoholics. The novel portrays no demented killers, describes no criminal schemes, provides no “tour of hell” (to quote the front cover of the 1993 reprint). Rather than being “palpably evil” (the back cover), the book is thoughtful and funny. It offers an ironic take on treatment for alcoholism. The patients don’t want to be cured; the psychiatrist has no idea what he’s doing; the staff is out of control. Thompson sympathizes with his collection of misfits and offers no alternative approach to operating the sanitarium. In the end, though, he’s optimistic that concern and persistence can make a difference. (Which could explain the appearance of the patient who arrives on the last two pages.) The novel reads easily as it bounces from one odd event to another. Fans of Thompson’s other work will perhaps be disappointed, but mainstream readers might enjoy the book quite a bit.

FOR THE PLEASURE OF HIS COMPANY

    For the Pleasure of His Company by Charles Warren Stoddard. A. M. Robertson (1903), 257 pp.
    Paul Clitheroe, probably in his early thirties, has an apartment in the remnants of a hilltop mansion in San Francisco. It’s filled with books that reflect his diverse interests and mementos that recall his wide-ranging travels. Although he’s a well known figure in the city’s literary scene, he is barely able to support himself through his essays and poetry. He has enough talent to be successful, but his personality characteristics -- he’s unfocused, ingenuous and overly sensitive -- prevent him from accomplishing much. His trusting nature affects his social life as well, allowing him to be easily manipulated. As the story begins, he forms an attachment to Foxlair, an attractive mountebank who swipes some items from the apartment before skipping town.
    The major literary distinction of For the Pleasure of His Company is its depiction of a fairly obviously gay protagonist. Paul has plenty of women friends but is not attracted to them sexually. Which is not to say that his occasional relationships with other men are portrayed with any sexual explicitness. Mostly he just drifts from one person to another. Stoddard’s writing prevents Paul from becoming a compelling character. His plot meanders and backtracks, his prose is staid and wordy, and his dialog is unrealistically formal. The effect is soporific. Readers interested in gay fiction might enjoy the book, but a wider modern audience is difficult to imagine.