Flower of the World by Alice Calhoun Haines. Dutton (1922), 286 pp.
At first it seemed that this book might have some edgy possibilities. The story begins about 1907 in an artist colony on the coast north of San Diego. Scuptor Philip Cartwright sees a sprightly but graceful young girl dancing on the beach. She’s Lisa, a Mexican gypsy without clear family ties. He wants her to pose for him if he can convince her to take off her clothes. When she finally complies, he realizes that she’s just the inspiration he needs to get his career in high geer. He buys off a woman who claims to be her grandmother and installs Lisa as a permanent fixture in his house. There she stays for nearly a decade. He becomes rich and famous; she grows up to be beautiful and sexy. Eventually, the ideas she inspires in him are not merely artistic.
So far, so good. Can Philip cope with his changing feelings without endangering his meal ticket? Does Lisa want the relationship to change, and, if not, can she find a way to maintain the status quo? There’s much for the author to explore. But because Haines has been unable to give her characters any emotional depth, she skips such questions and sends the story off into a cesspool of romance-novel clichés. Lisa’s life becomes increasingly (and unnecessarily) implausible as the tale stumbles on toward its happy ending. The book may deserve some points for its descriptions of Mexican gypsies and American activities in Mexico during the revolution. Even so, the chances that it will find a modern audience are very slim.
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