A VIEW OF THE BAY

    It’s pretty typical today for novelists to be college professors. But that was not true fifty or sixty years ago. English professors taught undergraduates, fiction writers scrambled to find outlets for their work, and the two groups seldom crossed paths. As far as I can tell, this began to change in the 1940s. In the vanguard of California’s academic novelists was Richard Scowcroft (1916-2001), who had a Ph.D. from Harvard and arrived at Stanford in 1947 to direct (with Wallace Stegner) the writing program there.

    A View of the Bay by Richard Scowcroft. Houghton Mifflin (1955), 218 pp.
    Leonard Shaw, a thirty-something San Francisco businessman, discovers he’s been bequeathed a large sum by Craig Robertson, a former prep-school roommate who has recently committed suicide. Also named in the will is Robertson’s small literary magazine, which will now continue under the auspices of his assistant, Audrey. Soon Robertson’s sultry sister, Nora, shows up to challenge the will. All this brings to Leonard’s mind his previous experiences with Janet, his now pregnant wife, and with the Robertson family.
    Well-crafted prose proves insufficient to bring this book to life. The portrait of the main character, Leonard Shaw, lacks precision. The reason for his unhappiness, the hopes he has for the sister, and his problems with his wife are all vague. Even the nature of the inheritance is unclear. The other characters are presented more sharply, but none is sympathetic. It’s possible that fifty years ago stories of men (or at least of veterans) coping with women, money, and careers automatically sparked interest. That is not the case today. So modern readership is likely to be limited.