Reading California Fiction

FIRE

    This book is a companion piece to Storm, Stewart’s earlier novel about the struggle against nature’s disruptive forces. The overall story line is similar but not identical. The threat, the forest fire, is smaller in scope and can be attacked directly. The characters are not anonymous functionaries, as they were in Storm. Here they have names, back-stories and differing opinions. Stewart even adds some love interest, which takes the narrative on an ill-advised but thankfully brief side track.

    Fire by George R. Stewart. Random House (1948), 336 pp.
    A storm with plenty of lightening but little rain has been making its way north along the Sierra and has reached the Ponderosa National Forest. It’s fire season in California, so workers in the forest are on alert. At the Cerrro Gordo lookout station Judith Godoy, a pretty college student on her first assignment, scans the skies for smoke. Meanwhile, longtime district ranger John Bartley is less concerned about fires, which he’s been fighting for years, than about his new boss, Ranger Jones, who seems inexperienced and indecisive. Other key players are dispatcher Arnold Sorenson and weatherman Dave Halliday.
    There’s little question about what’s going to happen in this story. The title announces there will be a fire; the map on the inside of the cover shows when and where the fire will spread; and the jacket blurb outlines the novel’s plot and states its main theme. Which puts a heavy burden on the author’s narrative skills. Stewart meets the challenge with vivid descriptions of the fire-fighters in action and canny explanations of fire-fighting strategies. The narrative moves back and forth among an array of characters, though its approach is even more expansive. At one point, for example, a paragraph about weather patterns over Alaska is followed by one depicting a panicky rabbit in the underbrush. Stewart’s message is ultimately ecological: Natural phenomena are inevitably linked. Some elements of current fire-fighting are missing, among them tanker planes, satellite data, and arguments about the wisdom of fire suppression. Even so, the book will probably still appeal to anyone interested in the topic.

A FREE SOUL

    A Free Soul by Adela Rogers St. John. Cosmopolitan (1927), 355 pp.
    Jan Ashe has two loves. The first is her father, Stephen, scion of an old San Francisco family who has become a famous defense lawyer. Finagling acquittals for criminals is preying on his mind, however, and leading him to drink. Her second love, dating to the days when they were children, is Ace Wilfong, a one-time street urchin who has become the city’s leading gambler. A more conventional choice for Jan is Dwight Sutro, who comes from serious money and works for her father. But Jan, strong-willed and free-spirited, has no interest in convention.
    This romance does not fall into one of the standard sub-genres, but no one will mistake it for serious literature. The narrator talks too much, explaining everything so definitively that readers have nothing to ponder about. Dialog, though plentiful, reveals nothing interesting about the speakers. The characters lack depth and generate little sympathy. Even Jan comes across more as a spoiled brat than the strong, independent woman the author intends. To top it off, St. Johns’ prose often takes on a purplish hue. Someone researching San Francisco’s female writers of the 1920s might want to read the book. A larger modern audience is unlikely.

THE WAYWARD BUS

    The Wayward Bus by John Steinbeck. Viking Press (1947), 312 pp.
    Juan Chicoy, a true man’s man of about fifty, manages a small stop-over for travelers on a main north-south highway in the San Joaquin Valley. With the help of his acne-laden assistant, Pimples Carson, he handles the gas pumps and garage, while his blowsy wife Alice runs the grocery store and lunchroom. Her latest helper is Norma, who dreams of a glamorous life in Hollywood. Juan also drives a decrepit bus on a daily fifty-mile run over the hills to a town on Highway 101 near the coast. Yesterday the vehicle broke down, stranding three passengers on their way to Mexico -- businessman Elliott Pritchard, his passive-aggressive wife Bernice, and his college-student daughter Mildred -- and a novelty salesman, Ernest Horton, heading for L. A. Juan has got the bus running again, but a spring rainstorm threatens to make the journey hazardous.
    This is an excellent example of a realistic character-driven novel. There’s some element of suspense as the trip gets underway. Something will happen to the beat-up bus on the trip, but readers won’t know what. Mostly, though, Steinbeck focuses on the travelers, which he expands with a hot blonde and a grumpy codger. His narrator gets into everyone’s head yet does not refrain from analysis and judgment. The characters are meant to be ordinary folks living small lives. All are limited in one way or another, and Steinbeck expects little from them. Still, each has hopes and concerns, and each changes as the story unfolds. Some readers may find the Chaucerian set-up formulaic and the inclusion of so many young women implausible. Yet the novel reads easily and (despite a few digressions) holds together well. It was a best-seller in 1947 and still warrants an audience today.

THE GIRL HE LEFT BEHIND

     The Girl He Left Behind by Marion Hargrove. Viking Press (1956), 191 pp.
    Andy Shaeffer is cruising through UCLA, having fun and paying as little attention to his classes as possible. His father disapproves; his mother indulges him. His immature behavior is finally too much for his earnest girlfriend, Susan Daniel. She dumps him. When Andy fails some courses, he loses his student deferment. He then decides to prove he is a serious person by volunteering for the draft. He’s sent up the coast to “Fort Burnside” for basic training. There he meets fellow inductees: Hanson the old-timer, Maguire the goldbrick, and Carlton the zealot. Andy’s adventures in the army are just beginning.
    This book takes place in that brief era between the Korean and Vietnam wars when the United States maintained a huge conscripted military but had no war to fight. Hargrove, who wrote a famous comedic memoir of his first days in the army during World War II, keeps the story light. Events are either intrinsically amusing or told in an amusing way. Even the sadistic first sergeant turns out to be a nice guy. Hargrove has little sympathy for the new recruits. Basic training builds character -- which, he suggests, is sadly lacking among members of the mollycoddled postwar generation. Readers who look back fondly on their own military experiences may enjoy the book. Others are less likely to see the humor.

THE ROAD TO NEEDLES

    It’s often amazing how much author information you can compile from random websites. Here’s what I learned about Dorothy Speare (1898-1951): She graduated from Smith College in 1919 and published her first novel, Dancers in the Dark, in 1922. She followed it with three other novels about modern young women in the 1920s. She was also an operatic soprano who sang professionally. She married in 1924 and again in 1934. She was in Hollywood in the early 1930s and garnered one screen credit, which was for the 1934 film One Night of Love. She continued to write short stories but published her only other additional novel, in 1947. She taught writing at Boston University in the 1940s. And, unless Google has missed something, that’s the most complete biography of Speare on the internet.

    The Road to Needles by Dorothy Speare. Houghton Mifflin (1937), 300 pp.
    Martha Storey, already a successful writer of light fiction at age 25, has come to Hollywood to adapt one of her novels for the movies. Enthusiastic, unaffected and attractive, she soon catches the eye of Joe Abernathy, another young writer at the studio. Martha relegates him to best-friend status. Her heart belongs to Norman Phillips, a once highly regarded playwright who’s been working in film for several years. Pushing forty, he’s a jaded, uncultured womanizer who drinks heavily. She believes he can be a great artist again. He thinks her innocence will help purify his soul. Will love keep them together?
    Speare takes up a couple of themes -- East Coast writer comes to Hollywood, young woman falls for once-great older man -- which, if not original, could still have been combined into an interesting novel. Then, unfortunately, she can’t get the job done. Martha, the protagonist, is too unsophisticated to generate much sympathy. Norman never comes alive at all. Although opportunities abound for presenting insider information, Speare does little with Martha’s experiences as a screenwriter. Instead, the author tries to depict the Hollywood scene through a multitude of minor characters. But they turn out to be drab and superficial. Speare’s writing style is sometimes surprising, especially in her use of flashbacks, but she undercuts the effectiveness of the narrative with many pages of pointless dialog. Except perhaps for the title, the book has little to recommend it. Even a small modern audience is difficult to imagine.