Reading California Fiction

THE SLIDE AREA

    The Slide Area by Gavin Lambert. Viking Press (1959), 223 pp.
    This book presents a group of five interrelated short stories set in Los Angeles. All have the same first-person narrator, a screenwriter who has immigrated from England. They run from twenty-five to forty-six pages and are bookended by two shorter pieces. Each of the five focuses on characters whose lives are as impermanent as those houses on the sandy cliffs that overlook the ocean. In “Nukuhiva” Mark Cusden, the narrator’s handsome and ingratiating school buddy, can’t find a way to settle down. In “The End of the Line” the doddering Contessa Marguerite Osterberg-Steblechi thinks she’s living in Marrakech. In the first of three Hollywood stories, “The Closed Set,” Julie Forbes, an aging star with a recurrently changing image, has engaged Cliff Harriston, who once had artistic aspirations, to direct her latest film. In “Dreaming Emma” an optimistic new arrival from Galena, Illinois, Emma Slack, is ready to do anything to get into the movies. Finally, in “Sometimes I’m Blue” Clyde Williams, the spoiled and unstable teenage son of a wealthy theatrical agent, finds himself living with two people trying to control his life, a young man with a crush on him and the fiftyish wife of a real estate agent. The narrator participates in all the stories but doesn’t change their trajectories. The author treats his characters with sympathy and perceptiveness but does not gloss over their shortcomings. He manages to turn them into representative Los Angeles types without depriving them of their individuality. Lambert writes simply and calmly. His descriptions of setting capture the ambience of the city. Deserving of a wide audience, The Slide Area may be the best place to begin the reading of Los Angeles fiction.

THE GO-GETTER

    Some readers like to set yearly numerical targets (fifty-two books in fifty-two weeks, for example) and now find themselves entering the busy holiday season with their goals unmet. If you are one of these folks, let me suggest The Go-Getter. My edition has a small format, wide margins and only fifty-four pages of text. I was taking notes and still finished in less than an hour. And including the book can easily be rationalized. The author, Peter B. Kyne (1880-1957), enjoyed great popularity, especially in the 1920s. He published twenty-five novels and hundreds of short stories during a forty-year career. His work has been filmed more than a hundred times. In addition, Cappy Ricks, one of The Go-Getter’s main characters, appeared in Kyne’s other stories and is considered his most important literary creation. So what’s stopping you? Download it now and bulk up your list.

    The Go-Getter by Peter B. Kyne. Farrar and Rinehart (1921), 62 pp.
    Cappy Ricks, irascible but soft-hearted lumber and shipping magnate, has passed control of his companies to two subordinates, his long-time associate, the stodgy and mean-spirited Skinner, and his son-in-law, the fearful and passive Matt Peasley. Although Ricks is officially retired, he still keeps his hand in the business. After an overseas manager absconds with company funds, the three gather to discuss a replacement. Ricks argues that promotions are not taking into account initiative and hard work. Then Bill Peck, a disabled veteran with abundant self-confidence, applies for a job. Skinner and Peasley turn him down, but Ricks believes he sees in Peck the qualities that make a successful businessman.
    Readers will see from the book’s full title, The Go-Getter: A Story That Tells You How to Be One, that the author intends to inspire. In this he adds one more work to what was probably even in 1921 a long list of books and articles describing techniques for achieving a successful business career. (Now, of course, we also have seminars, audio tapes and DVDs, not to mention M.B.A. programs.) Kyne puts Bill Peck on the right road when the job-seeker announces to Ricks, “I am about to sell myself to you.” But that’s only the first step. Ultimately what turns out to be needed are ingenuity and steadfastness in carrying out orders. That’s a message that seems not to have changed much in the past nine decades. As for literary merit, the book deserves points for a lively prose style and -- have I mentioned this? -- brevity.

SONS OF THE FATHERS

    Sons of the Fathers by Martin Kramer. Macmillan (1959), 342 pp.
    This novel tells the story of six male friends from different backgrounds who share artistic interests. In the first section, set in 1934, they are undergraduates at Berkeley. Leader of the group is Marion McNaughton, world weary yet inexperienced, who hopes to become a writer. Robb Nixon, like the rest an aspiring painter, struggles for social acceptance because his skin lacks pigmentation. Johnny Rue, an African American, experiences racism at every turn and feels like an outcast. Virgil Benthwick, an immigrant from England, has problems reconciling his noble birth and his family’s lack of funds. Terrence Collin, stunningly handsome, has the most talent and the least familial support of anyone in the group. Finally, George Morley III is an almost larger than life figure: big, rich, athletic, pompous, sullenly idealistic, and sexually prodigious. The next section of the novel checks back on the friends in 1939, primarily to see what career choices they have made. The third section revisits them in 1945 to check the impact of the war on their lives.
    The author doesn’t seem to be emphasizing anything in the different voyages of her characters. Times change, unexpected events alter plans, aspirations shrivel, new relationships develop, deeper understandings emerge. So in general the novel has much to keep track of but little to be surprised about. Everything turns on the characters. They have interesting qualities but lack immediacy. The author, who was born in 1922, didn’t have similar experiences in her own life. (Martin Kramer is a pseudonym of Beatrice Ann Wright.) She perhaps needed a less ambitious project, one that didn’t required so much for her to imagine. The book invites comparison to Mary McCarthy’s The Group (1963), in which the author clearly is able to remember life at a women’s college in the 1930s. In any case, Sons of the Fathers received decent reviews, but Kramer/Wright apparently never published anything else.

GIDGET

    Gidget by Frederick Kohner. Putnam (1957), 156 pp.
    You probably know the story. Franzie, short, fiesty and nearly sixteen, swims too far from the beach at Malibu. She’s about to be drawn under when she’s pulled from the ocean by the surfer Moondoggie and given a ride to shore on his board. Surfing instantly becomes her summer obsession. She wants to learn how to do it and to be accepted by the clique of college boys who spend each day surfing at the beach. They, however, see women as accessories rather than participants and give her the disparaging nickname Gidget, a combination of girl and midget. But then the leader of the group, Cass, a full-time surf bum known reverentially as the great Kahuna, takes her under his wing. The others change their attitude, especially after she begins bringing them food from home, and her prospects for the summer brighten.
    The story’s first-person narrator is a vivid literary creation. By turns knowing and naive, Gidget interprets events as she describes them. Her unaffected use of surfer slang helps to anchor the story in time and place. The book, needless to add, is not heavy reading. But it’s not simple-minded either. Teen-age girls today might well enjoy the novel, although the surfing world it describes is not nearly so exciting now as it was fifty years ago. The 1959 film adaptation made Gidget a recurrent character in American popular culture. Frederick Kohner wrote four sequels; Hollywood cranked out several more films and two television series. The book, incidentally, is substantially more thoughtful than the movie.

IN THE WRONG RAIN

    In the Wrong Rain by Robert R. Kirsch. Little, Brown (1959), 339 pp.
    Business consultant Frank Chesney seems to be living the American dream. He has a lovely wife, three mostly untroubled boys, a pleasant house, and a steady income from Hollywood clients. But beneath the surface Frank has problems. He has no friends. His kids are most appealing when they’re not around. And his wife, Sue, is more of a marriage manager than a soulmate. He begins to confront these problems when Pat Godden, seventeen-year-old daughter of Sue’s old college roommate, arrives in L. A. to become an actress. Sue agrees to help her become adjusted, but it’s Frank who becomes attracted to the emotional and insecure young woman.
    The novel has (at least) three themes, none of which receives fully satisfying treatment. The first concerns the average guy who finds his feelings of guilt, anger and loneliness bursting forth in behavior that he finds unacceptable. Frank is definitely that guy, but he never quite seems go beyond rationalizations and come to an understanding of his actions. Another theme turns on the sterility of married life in the 1950s’ era of togetherness. Kirsch paints a pretty dismal picture of Frank and Sue’s marriage all right, but he offers them no alternative to just sticking it out. A third theme revolves around the relationship of an older man and a younger woman. Here Frank’s motivation doesn’t seem carnal enough. He’s drawn almost completely to Pat’s emotional instability and takes only a passing interest in her sexual appeal. Adding to these thematic problems is Kirsch’s irritating fondness for dialog in the form of accusatory outburst. Still, the book raises enough issues to gain a modern audience. Book groups, in particular, might find that it prompts lively discussion.

THE VINEYARD

    Far be it from me to tell authors how to write their novels. After reading The Vineyard, however, I feel compelled to offer one suggestion: Think long and hard about starting a story with one of the main characters struggling through the mud during a ferocious rain storm. I think this sets the wrong tone for the reader, as if the book itself is going to be a wearisome slog. Which is pretty much what I thought of The Vineyard. Other folks have liked it more, including those at the University of California Press, which reissued it in 1997. 

    The Vineyard by Idwal Jones. Duell, Sloan and Pearce (1942), 279 pp.
    The Vineyard is a multigenerational novel about viticulture in the Napa Valley. As the story opens, Alda Pendle, daughter of one of the valley’s pioneer wine makers, is seeking work. She’s a strong and graceful young woman who has lost her own vineyard yet remains completely dedicated to viticulture. She arrives with her five-year-old charge Cleve at Villa Montino, which is managed by Hector Regola. The place is still owned by his father Giorgio, who years earlier had ripped out the fine Regolberg vines developed by Alda’s father and replaced them with grapes for cheap champagne. Hector, dispirited by his overbearing father, gives only perfunctory attention to the vineyard. He hires Alda as a sort of housekeeper, but she soon takes on management duties. When she convinces Hector to plant Zinfandel grapes in defiance of his father, Villa Montino promises to spring to life once again.
    Unfortunately, the novel itself never springs to life. The author is deeply interested in the history and processes of the Napa Valley’s wine industry. In 1949 he wrote a book on this topic, Vines in the Sun, which may have served his purposes more fully than the fictional treatment in The Vineyard. In any case, the novel’s characters lack depth and require the third-person narrator to define their personalities. And its plot twists largely act as filler to take the story from the end of the phylloxera infestation in the 1890s to the coming of prohibition in 1920. Anyone looking for a gripping read will probably want to go elsewhere. Readers fascinated by viticulture, however, especially those who already know quite a bit about it, may be able to overlook the novel’s literary shortcomings. This may be quite a large group, since the book was reprinted in paperback in 1973 and again 1997. It is still in print.

LATE SEPTEMBER

    Late September by Gladys Johnson. Macrae-Smith (1932), 299 pp.
    Passion has disappeared from the life of San Francisco businessman Richard Carewe. He wonders if and how he can get it back. Florrie, his wife of twenty years, is unlikely to provide a solution. Relieved that their sex life has ended, she revels in her growing frumpiness. Richard’s imminent grandfatherhood at forty -- he’s just learned his daughter is pregnant -- seems to be forcing old age upon him. His partner Will Gregory, also married for many years, has one answer: chase around with younger women. Elsa Gordon, divorcée on the prowl, is ready to get together at once. But it’s only when Richard meets Joyce Slater, a vibrant and alluring businesswoman, that he thinks seriously of taking action. He soon learns that Joyce’s marriage is in more trouble than his own.
    This novel is notable in several ways. First, Gladys Johnson (1891-1933) focuses nearly all of her attention on Richard. His thoughts, feelings and actions form the core of the book. She takes his problems seriously. The way he comes to perceive his marriage is understandable, and his quest for passion is completely legitimate. Next, the author discards all the conventions of romance fiction. Traditional moral standards don’t lead to happiness, and marital bliss is at best delusional. The characters, conflicted and confused, behave like real people. Their fate is unclear until the end of the book. Finally, Johnson adopts a restrained prose style that matches the frankness of her presentation. She passes up opportunities for melodramatic scenes and verbal confrontations. In short, this is a remarkable novel that seems altogether modern in its attitudes. It deserves a wide audience.