Reading California Fiction

SINFUL DESIRES

    Sinful Desires by Florence Stonebraker. Bedside Books (1959), 186 pp.
    Twenty-year-old Kay Slater, a tall and athletic former model, is spending the summer in Laguna Beach. Her shrewish mother Lucy, who runs an apartment house there, still feels entitled to intervene in Kay’s life. Back in Los Angeles, Kay’s forty-something husband Doug, a real estate executive prone to violent rages of jealousy and bouts of brutal sex, worries about her faithfulness. When he discovers a sluttish crayon portrait of Kay, he fears she may be having an affair with the artist, Kenny Collins. As it happens, Kenny is trying to work out his relationship with gay roommate George Anderson. Doug’s serious rival is actually Marsha Graham, an avowed lesbian, who is the only real friend Kay has had for years.
    Sinful Desires kicked off the series of Bedside Books. These novels, and others today categorized as “sleaze,” focused on the fringes of conventional sexual behavior. But anyone who picked up this book fifty years ago hoping to find some titillation was probably disappointed. Stonebraker isn’t attempting to provide sexual excitement here. Her goal is didactic. She’s trying to explain the origins of homosexuality in terms that will give her intended audience pause for thought. She spins a story based on current psychoanalytic theory. All the characters who are coping with homosexual feelings (Kay, Marsha, Kenny and George) had childhood experiences, recurrent or traumatic, that set their sexual orientations askew. None was born gay, and none is comfortable with the idea of being gay. Stonebraker remains sympathetic to them (but not to Lucy and Doug) even as she concocts not quite satisfactory solutions to their problems. Modern readers with an interest in Gender Studies might find the book of value.

THE TIME BETWEEN

    The Time Between by Gale Wilhelm. Morrow (1942), 208 pp.
    Wounded bomber pilot Dick Hainesford has ten days’ leave between his release from a San Francisco hospital and his return to active duty. He’s tall, rich and handsome -- and completely in love with Marion Gober (Goby), his girlfriend in the small Central Valley town that his ancestors founded. On their way home she tells him of the combat death of her brother Hugh and the continuing bereavement of her sister-in-law Clare. For Dick the sad news provides one more reason for Goby to agree to marry him at once. Like his mother, though, she doubts the wisdom of making such a commitment in wartime.
    Written early in World War II, the book paints scenes of the homefront that would be replicated in real life millions of times before peace returned. Young men went off to war; women, children and old folks stayed home to wonder and worry. Wilhelm eschews flag-waving. She supports the conflict only by showing the dedicated participation of Dick, a fellow who has everything to lose. What she does not avoid are many opportunities for limp dialog, which when undertaken by Dick and Goby often congeals into romantic goo. Wilhelm wants to get into the heads of her characters but doesn’t put much there to engage readers. Her streaming narrative style doesn’t disguise the obviousness of much of what happens. The book is of some historical interest, but a large modern audience seems unlikely.

NO LETTERS FOR THE DEAD

    No Letters for the Dead by Gale Wilhelm. Random House (1936), 212 pp.
    New York pianist Paula Strindler suffers two nearly simultaneous shocks. Her infant son dies suddenly. And her boyfriend, Koni Tillada, the child’s father, lands in legal trouble. He’s gone to San Francisco to convince his wife, Georgia, to give him a divorce. After she flies into a rage and shoots herself, he’s convicted of failing to prevent her death. Koni receives a two-year sentence in San Quentin. After several months in a rest home, Paula decides she must move west to be near him.
    Wilhelm follows up We Too Are Drifting with another story of a woman whose sexual activities take her far from conventional respectability. The book again omits quotation marks to run together description, thoughts and dialog. Here, however, the style loses some of its stream-of-consciousness flavor because Wilhelm frequently changes viewpoint. The protagonist’s personality is less vivid and her behavior less credible. Which is a serious problem in a novel that relies so much on shocking plot twists. Readers today might still be intrigued by Wilhelm’s take on fidelity. Otherwise, however, they are unlikely to find the book satisfying.

TORCHLIGHT TO VALHALLA

    I’m going to hide my historian’s hat for a moment and make up a story backed by little evidence. In this tale Gale Wilhelm decides that she can use her bisexuality to write novels that explore unusual aspects of interpersonal relationships. Her first book (We Too Are Drifting), in which most of the major characters are lesbians, does just that and is highly successful. The second book (No Letters for the Dead), features straight relationships and doesn’t do as well. When she returns to the same topic in the next novel (Torchlight to Valhalla, later reprinted as The Strange Path), her publisher fears that her audience will continue to dwindle. Bring us lesbians! demands Random House. Wilhelm makes some changes, but her heart isn’t in it. Fearing she'll become a popular hack who churns out one lesbian novel after another, she finds a new publisher and never writes of lesbians again.

    Torchlight to Valhalla by Gale Wilhelm. Random House (1938), 191 pp.
    Aspiring novelist Morgen Teutenberg is just turning twenty-one. She lives in the Berkeley hills with her ailing father, famed painter Fritz Teutenberg. She takes care of him. He provides the wherewithal for her solitary existence. Her only friend is a neighbor, woodworker Mark Strauss. On a walk one day she meets wealthy San Francisco pianist Royal St. Gabriel. The young man is instantly smitten and begins a standard courtship -- dinner dates, small gifts, and other reminders of his interest. Morgen likes Royal but isn’t sure how far she wants the relationship to go.
    Book covers make it clear what this novel is supposed to be about. The Lion reprint (1953) announces Morgen’s choice: “normal marriage or lesbian love.” The Berkley edition (1958) promises a story about “women who find love only in the arms of other women.” Naiad (1985) tells of the romance between Morgen and Toni. The problem is that Wilhelm doesn’t introduce either Toni or any other new female character until she’s told 80 percent of the story. Through most of the novel, which focuses more on thoughts than actions, Morgen has no question about her basic sexual orientation. Her inability to warm up to Royal seems due more to hang-ups about her father than a hidden desire for women. The speed with which she finally hops into bed with seventeen-year-old Toni adds a creepiness to the allegedly romantic ending. So Wilhelm’s intentions are not entirely clear. Modern readers will find much to puzzle over.

WE TOO ARE DRIFTING

    The literary reputation of Gale Wilhelm (1908-1991) rests on her two short novels about lesbians, We Too Are Drifting and Torchlight to Valhalla (1938). These books, as well as No Letters for the Dead (1936), received favorable reviews and seemed to herald the arrival of a major talent. But her last three novels, Bring Home the Bride (1940), The Time Between (1942) and Never Let Me Go (1945), abandoned lesbian themes and drew little appreciation among critics. She published nothing after 1945. Even so, her output of six novels puts her among the most prolific of California’s female non-genre writers.

    We Too Are Drifting by Gale Wilhelm. Random House (1935), 206 pp.
    Nothing seems able to lift the spirits of thirty-year-old engraver Jan Morale. Her work proceeds only intermittently. Her girlfriend, beautiful, possessive and persistent Madelin Souchée, provides just a few pleasurable moments in a relationship that has lost its spark. While her best friend, the sculptor Kletkin, remains supportive, the rest of the San Francisco art scene leaves her cold. Even her grim attic apartment is getting her down. Then she meets Victoria Connerly, a twenty-year-old former art student who is a big fan of Jan’s work. They hit it off immediately. Pretty and vivacious, Victoria might be able to bring some joy into Jan’s life.
    This book is best known for its frank and unsensational treatment of lesbian relationships. They are, at least among the artistic crowd that Wilhelm depicts, not much different from those experienced by straight women. The book goes further, however. The author enhances her treatment of the subject with a pitch-perfect description of someone suffering from chronic depression. Jan can’t accept praise, tolerate the company of her acquaintances or open up to anyone. She’s trapped in a world of almost unrelenting bleakness. Wilhelm’s unusual writing style helps to capture Jan’s feelings. The author uses short and simple words, almost as if she lacked the energy to show off her vocabulary. And she doesn’t set off dialog with quotation marks, giving the narrative an unemphasized, stream-of-consciousness feel (even though it’s in the third person). Although not as daring as it was seventy-five years ago, the book deserves a wide modern audience.

MAMIE BRANDON

    Mamie Brandon was the second novel by Jack Sheridan (1916-1987). It has a curious history. Like his first novel, Mischief Done (1948), it was originally published in London. It had no hard cover printing in the United States. Popular Library brought out a paperback edition in 1951, but only after the novel was “slightly abridged.” Sheridan was a newspaperman in San Francisco before he moved to Texas in the 1950s. He wrote at least one other California novel, Paradise Motel (1953).

    Mamie Brandon by Jack Sheridan. Home and Van Thal (1949), 323 pp.
    Voluptuous Mamie Thomas runs a lunch room on Route 40 about halfway between Sacramento and Reno. She’s got the hots for sexy roustabout Frank Parks but, now in her late twenties, she’s looking for security rather than a good time. So when fiftyish Karl Brandon, a sullen loner with a ranch nearby, proposes marriage, Mamie quickly accepts. Her boss, Bill Randall, and his pretty wife, Ruth, warn her against a loveless marriage. Frank asserts that she’ll never be able to satisfy her sex drive with such a dreary partner. But Mamie marries Karl anyway. Bill then hires Binnie, whose brother Art is Frank’s protégé, to take over the lunch room. Meanwhile, Mamie moves into Karl’s surprisingly elegant house and tries out the role of dedicated homemaker.
    This piece of working-class realism offers a familiar story in an unfamiliar setting. From the first few pages readers will know that Mamie’s marital aspirations are going to have tragic consequences. What they won’t know is what’s going to happen along the way and exactly what the consequences will be. Sheridan keeps the story moving logically and cooks up a surprising ending. His writing style is clear and controlled. The ungrammatical dialog always seems appropriate. The problem is that Sheridan’s characters, though believable, are not quite compelling. Readers may just not care very much what happens to them. Perhaps the novel would have worked better if Frank had been the central character, since the fate of the other characters depends more on him than on Mamie. As is, the book provides a mildly entertaining read.

DARK PASSAGE

    Dark Passage by Davis Goodis. Julian Messner (1946), 248 pp.
    Vincent Parry, in his early thirties and wrongly convicted of his wife’s murder, escapes from San Quentin in a truck hauling construction supplies. He recollects people from his past: his bitchy wife; his wife’s false friend, Madge Rapf, whose evidence led to his conviction; and his lonely pal and fellow brokerage clerk, George Fellsinger. After extracting himself from the truck, he’s picked up on the road by an inquisitive fellow driving a Studebaker. Parry knocks the guy unconscious and steals his clothes. He then gets a ride from Irene Janney, a slender and well-heeled woman in her mid-twenties. She knows who he is and is determined to help him escape. They make it to her apartment in San Francisco, where Parry plans his next moves.
    This may be one of those books better known for the movie made from it than for its own literary qualities. Goodis’s set-up offers many possibilities, and some of his passages -- Parry’s colloquy with a corpse, for example -- are striking. But the author never quite reaches his goal of turning the protagonist into a besieged everyman. And several of the other characters lack credible motivation. In addition, the plot relies heavily on coincidence and doesn’t make much use of its main contrivance. Ultimately, the book disappoints. Readers might do better with the movie. They can get the whole story and have a chance to watch Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall to boot.

ADVERBS

    Raymond Chandler with more sex -- that seems to be the goal of Asking for Trouble by Mary F. McChesney (writing as Joe Rayter). And it’s true that the characters surrounding McChesney’s detective are randier than those faced by Philip Marlowe. But there’s more to Chandler than character -- or even plot. Writing style counts a lot.
    Sometimes style means word usage. As I began reading Asking for Trouble, I became aware of McChesney’s fondness for adverbs. She uses them most conspicuously to modify verbs that refer to speech. So we get “asked curiously,” “remarked casually,” “answered morosely,” and so on. I began wondering whether Chandler, who was presumably one of McChesney’s models, had the same adverbial predilection.
    So I got down Farewell, My Lovely and started a tiny research project. I compared direct quotations in the first 27 pages of the two books. It turned out that Chandler used more quotations (170 to 150) but appended fewer adverbs (14 to 24). In percentage terms the difference is more striking. Chandler employed adverbs with quotations half as frequently (14 percent of the time to 29 percent) as McChesney.
    And here’s something interesting. When Chandler did insert an adverb, he almost always used a short one. Of his 14 only one (“deliberately”) had more than three syllables. McChesney, on the other hand, had a weakness for longer adverbs. Fully a third of her 24 had four or five syllables. The group included “curiously,” “placatingly,” “reproachfully,” “irritably,” “definitively,” “belligerently” and (her favorite) “sarcastically.” Chandler slipped in adverbs, hoping no one would pay much attention. McChesney accentuated them, believing they would strengthen her sentences. That she was mistaken is probably something she should have been able to figure out.

ASKING FOR TROUBLE

    Asking for Trouble by Joe Rayter. M. S. Mill and William Morrow (1954), 256 pp.
    San Francisco P. I. John Powers heads north to Tomales Bay to visit Kirk Swenson, who operates an oyster bed there. Powers can’t find his friend,  but he does meet a disheveled old woman who is quite drunk. She says she hasn’t seen Swenson either. Powers goes to a nearby bar, where the surly bartender provides some information about Swenson’s recent activities. Powers returns to his friend’s place, where he finds an attractive woman, Deborah Young, in distress. She’s found Swenson -- dead in his bedroom. She doesn’t want to be around when the sheriff arrives. Powers agrees to let her leave, but only if she pays him two thousand dollars later that day. She goes, the sheriff shows up, and the investigation begins.
    Rayter starts to lose control of the story almost at once. Instead of keeping the action in Tomales and focusing on Swenson’s murder, the author shifts the scene to Santa Rosa and then San Francisco. More characters appear, none of whom has much motive to kill Swenson. Then Powers implausibly travels to Nevada, where he’s framed (even more implausibly) for a second murder. The story then shifts focus to the detective’s problems. Poor dead Swenson is nearly forgotten. All of this is narrated by Powers in a feeble Chandleresque voice that seems embarrassed when it tries to be amusing. The author also has some trouble restraining word usage. The book might be of interest to readers wondering what happens when a woman writer -- Joe Rayter is a pseudonym for Mary F. McChesney -- tries to create a hard-boiled detective. A larger modern audience appears unlikely.

HOUSE OF DECEIT

    We come at last to the third and final work in the literary oeuvre of Rae Loomis. Her previous novels were Marina Street Girls (1953) and Luisita (1954). Like the others House of Deceit is a paperback original that (not surprisingly) examines illicit sex in the era of Ozzie and Harriet. I would like to add some biographical information about Loomis, but the best I can come up with (thanks to the library at the University of Buffalo) is a year of birth, 1906. Otherwise, internet sources are silent. It would be interesting to know what she thought she was doing with these stories of strong women in the sex trade.

    House of Deceit by Rae Loomis. Ace Books (1955), 160 pp.
    Jenny George, a pretty and presentable prostitute in her mid-twenties, follows her gangster boyfriend, Fate Carlo, to a small, King City-like town in the Salinas Valley. She buys a small brothel but does not provide customer service herself -- with one exception. The privileged guy is Paul Morland, the scrawny and hunch-backed son of an agricultural magnate. He treats Jenny, the other hookers and even Birdie, the housekeeper, with kindness and generosity. His visits to the bordello upset his younger sister, Helen Montgomery, whose husband is running for mayor. Even more embarrassing, however, are the sexual exploits of slutty sister-in-law Adria Morland, whom Paul and Helen blame for the suicide of their brother. Happiness is not around the corner for anyone.
    Jenny and Paul share a belief, especially common in the 1950s, that marriage leads to fulfillment. For Jenny that means respect, material comforts and care in her old age. For Paul it means love, a cheerful home and a son to carry on the family name. But she has high social barriers to climb and he can’t even get a date. Loomis seems to be wondering whether some people are so incapacitated (in one way or another) that marriage can’t be their vehicle for fulfillment. The author sympathizes with her characters and doesn’t judge their behavior. She moves the viewpoint between Jenny and Paul and adds flashbacks to explain their attitudes. Her writing style is considered and functional, though the scheme she eventually has Jenny concoct seems a bit implausible. The story may be too tawdry for some readers, but those interested in life on the seamy side might find the book entertaining.