Reading California Fiction

PICTURE PEOPLE

    I must confess that I did not read the original hard cover version of Picture People. Instead, I opted for the abridged paperback reprint, unaccountably titled Don’t Say No (1956). So it’s imaginable (barely) that the longer version would be more satisfying. Olga Rosmanith (1893-1978) wrote three other novels, two of them paperback originals in the 1950s. She is also the originator of several inspirational quotations appearing on other websites.

    Picture People by Olga Rosmanith. Doubleday, Doran and Co. (1934), 301 pp.
    Film director Erich Muller, vacationing in his native Austria, meets shop worker Josepha Schmidt while buying some Viennese pastry. She’s tantalizingly beautiful, and Muller believes he can make her a star. Back in Los Angeles, he sequesters her until her movie debut. His wife, Gail, who works in the studio publicity department, fears that Josepha may be more than her husband can resist. When Gail meets Vincent Safian, the simpatico playwright working on the script, she develops resistance issues of her own.
    Unlike many Hollywood novels, Picture People has nothing satirical about it. Rosmanith expects the reader to believe that a talentless German-speaking shopgirl can be turned into a movie star through the genius of a great director. Muller fabricates bogus inner qualities from Josepha’s appearance alone. In real life she’s ignorant, self-centered and manipulative. That’s an interesting idea well worth exploring. Unfortunately, the author is primarily concerned with Gail, her marriage and her relationship with Vincent. Bringing vitality to this standard marriage-in-peril story turns out to be more than Rosmanith can manage. The book sinks into insipidity. Die-hard fans of Hollywood fiction might be interested. Others can safely stay clear.

NIKKI

    Nikki by Stuart Friedman. Monarch (1959), 189 pp.
    Smart, footloose and independently wealthy, Nikki Duquesne has moved to San Francisco to try to settle down. Now in her late twenties, she’s had many sexual experiences since her days in college. Her affair with football star Truk Wyznowski began a series of unsatisfying relationships in which she sought to be dominated but emerged as the one in control. She’s hoping to fall under the influence of her old roommate and only friend, Dolores Thelton, who’s happily living in the suburbs with husband Jim and their two children. But as Nikki’s encounters with two eligible bachelors, John Barket and Archer Cole, show, she is far from resolving her sexual issues.
    This novel probably falls into the category of “sleaze,” in that its essential purpose was the presentation of various sex scenes, described in as much detail as the law would allow. Which is not to say that the book lacks other virtues. Friedman is as interested in explaining Nikki’s unusual sexual activities as recounting them. He traces her attitudes back to her teenage years, when she received spankings from her father and learned about power by studying Nietzsche. The story is told almost completely from Nikki’s viewpoint (breaking away only once for a sex scene between ancillary characters), and she is constantly analyzing her own behavior. Like all paperback originals from the 1950s, the book’s an easy read. It’s likely to meet the expectations of anyone deciding to give it a try. (The pick-up scene in the lesbian bar is by itself almost worth the price of admission.) Friedman, incidentally, produced a sequel, Nikki Revisited, in 1963.

CALIFORNIA'S WOMEN AUTHORS

    In response to a recent query, I've compiled a list of the fiction I've read by women writers and updated it here. Most are novels, though a few short story collections are included. All have California settings and were written between 1890 and 1959. Those I haven't yet reviewed have an asterisk next to the date. To find the reviews go to the sidebar and either have Google search the site or (in most cases) click on the author or publication date lists. This list is fairly comprehensive in its coverage of authors of serious fiction. All of their works are not included, however. Writers of romances and mysteries are underrepresented. (And please forgive the wavy indentation line.) Go to the update.

Albert, Katherine                   “Invasion of Privacy, An” (1948) 

Albert, Katherine                   Remember Valerie March (1939)

Allen, Jane                            I Lost My Girlish Laughter (1938)

Armstrong, Charlotte             Dram of Poison, A (1956)

Atherton, Gertrude                American Wives and English Husbands (1898)*

Atherton, Gertrude                Avalanche, The: A Mystery Story (1919)

Austin, Mary                          Ford, The (1917)*

Austin, Mary                          Santa Lucia (1908)

Baker, Dorothy                      Trio (1943)

Baker, Dorothy                      Young Man with a Horn (1938)*

Baldwin, Faith                       Enchanted Oasis (1938)

Bangert, Ethel E.                   Her Best Man (1943)

Benson, Stella                       Poor Man, The (1922)

Bentham, Josephine              Bright Avenues (1928)

Bentham, Josephine              Outsiders (1929)

Brackett, Leigh                      No Good from a Corpse (1944)

Bristow, Gwen                       Tomorrow Is Forever (1943)

Burnham, Clara Louise           Leaven of Love, The (1908)

Cameron, Eleanor                  Unheard Music, The (1950)

Charles, Frances                    Siege of Youth, The (1903)

Child, Nellise                         If I Come Home (1943)

Cornell, Hughes                     Born Rich (1924)

Cornell, Hughes                     Marketing Deb (1926)

Crum, Gertrude Bosworth      Strumpet Wind (1938)

Delmar, Viña                          About Mrs. Leslie (1950)

Delmar, Viña                          “Hollywood Dynasty” (1939)

Dix, Beulah Marie                  Pity of God (1932)

Foote, Mary Hallock               Valley Road, The (1915)

Forbes, Kathryn                     Mama’s Bank Account (1943)

Forbes, Kathryn                     Transfer Point (1947)

Harraden, Beatrice                Hilda Strafford (1897)

Hobart, Alice Tisdale             Cleft Rock, The (1948)

Holland, Marty                       Glass Heart, The (1946)

Hornblow, Leonora                Memory and Desire (1950)

Hughes, Dorothy                    In a Lonely Place (1947)

Jackson, Shirley                     Road through the Wall, The (1948)

Jessey, Cornelia                    Teach the Angry Spirit (1949)

Johnson, Gladys                    Desire (1929)

Johnson, Gladys                    Late September (1932)

Kramer, Martin                      Sons of the Fathers (1959)

Lambert, Alice Elinor             Hospital Nocturne (1932)

Lane, Rose Wilder                  Diverging Roads (1919)

Lasswell, Mary                       Suds in Your Eye (1942)

Lederer, Virginia                   Married at Leisure (1944)

Lewis, Janet                          Against a Darkening Sky (1943)

Loomis, Rae                          Luisita (1954)

Loomis, Rae                          Marina Street Girls, The (1953)

Lubou, Haynes                       Reckless Hollywood (1932)

Lynde, H. H.                          Adversary, The (1957)

Lyon, Dana                            Tentacles, The (1950)

Marble, M. S.                         Die by Night (1947)

Marion, Frances                     Valley People (1935)

Martin, Nell                           Lovers Should Marry (1933)

McKee, Ruth Eleanor              Under One Roof (1936)

Michelson, Miriam                  Anthony Overman (1906)

Michelson, Miriam                  Yellow Journalist, A (1905)

Millar, Margaret                     Do Evil in Return (1950)

Millar, Margaret                     Wives and Lovers (1954)

Mitchell, Ruth Comfort          Play the Game! (1921)

Myers, Virginia                      Escape from Morales (1953)

Nielsen, Helen                       Woman on the Roof, The (1954)

Parkhurst, Genevieve             Headlong (1931)

Peattie, Louise Redfield         Lost Daughter (1938)

Roberts, Marjorie                  Webs in the Sky (1940)

Roberts, Marta                      Tumbleweeds (1940)

Rolfs, Mary Jane                    No Vacancy (1951)

Rosmanith, Olga                    Picture People (1934)

Salzscheider, F. Lucie            Pandora (1901)

Sela, Lora                              Push-Over (1958)

Shaw, Wilene                        Out for Kicks (1959)

Shedd, Margaret                    Return to the Beach (1950)

Shedd, Margaret                    Run (1956)

Shiras, Wilmar H.                   Children of the Atom (1953)

Simpson, Lola Jean                Back Fire (1927)

Spadoni, Adriana                   Noise of the World, The (1921)

Speare, Dorothy                    Road to Needles, The (1937)

St. Johns, Adela Rogers          Free Soul, A (1927)

Stewart, Ramona                   Desert Town (1946)

Stine, Buena Vista                 Not a Joy Forever (1945)

Turnbull, Margaret                 Close-Up, The (1918)

Van Der Veer, Judy                November Grass (1940)

West, Jessamyn                     Cress Delahanty (1954)*

Wiggin, Kate                         Marm Lisa (1896)

Wilhelm, Gale                       No Letters for the Dead (1936)*

Wilhelm, Gale                       Time Between, The (1942)*

Wilhelm, Gale                       Torchlight to Valhalla (1938)*

Wilhelm, Gale                       We Too Are Drifting (1935)*

Williams, Mona                      Marriage, The (1958)

Wolf, Alice S.                        House of Cards, A (1896)

Wolf, Emma                          Other Things Being Equal (1892)

Wolff, Maritta                       Big Nickelodeon, The (1956)*

MOON TIDE

    Moon Tide by Willard Robertson. Carrick and Evans (1940), 309 pp.
    After a night of hard drinking, Swede, a sometime dockworker who has been living in a flophouse, wakes up to find himself tending Hirota’s bait barge in San Pedro harbor. He decides he likes the job, which provides a small salary, lodging and a steady supply of sake. He soon meets an old fisherman who gets Swede thinking about abstract issues like coincidence and destiny. His explorations on shore lead him to a small café, where he tries to cheer up Ada, the glum and bedraggled waitress. The two will have another encounter that day, one with consequences he cannot foresee.
    This is one of those novels set during the Depression that explores the lives of people on the bottom rung of society. For Swede and Ada it’s a life without friends, resources and large hopes. Without class consciousness or any awareness of social issues, they attribute their situation to personal adversities in the past. Despite everything they are good folk who appreciate the smallest amelioration in their lives. Robertson isn’t interested in hard-hitting realism here, however. He adopts a dream-like tone that turns the novel into something of a fable. Like his fisherman, the author may be trying to bring up questions of chance and fate. Which would explain, though not justify, the deus-ex-machina intervention toward the end of the book. An easy read with simple prose and a nod to big issues, the novel could well find a modern audience.

PROUD FLESH

    Ordinarily I put together a set-up paragraph for each book that covers no more that 15 percent of the text. The idea is to introduce the main characters and indicate the trajectory of the story without giving away any important plot points. I couldn’t do that for Proud Flesh because the first quarter of the book focuses on wealthy San Francisco businessman Ferdinand Borel. He ships his infant daughter to Spain and then dies in the 1906 earthquake. But the daughter, Fernanda, is the book’s main character, and she doesn’t show up until the first third of the novel is over. So readers can safely begin the novel there, missing only a lively description of the quake from the view of Borel’s Chinese servant.

    Proud Flesh by Lawrence Rising. Boni and Liveright (1924), 317 pp.
    Here’s the set-up from p. 116, when Fernanda makes her first appearance. Now twenty-one, beautiful, rich and arrogant, she arrives to collect her inheritance from Gus McKee, conservator of her father’s estate. In tow is her suitor, Don Jaime Carlos del Val y Echiverra, who may be a Spanish nobleman. Fernanda is soon in the social whirl with the city’s wealthy elite, most of whom actually live in Hillsborough. She attends parties, goes to the opera, and amuses herself as only the rich can do. Then she meets brawny and ambitious Patrick O’Malley, once a plumber, now a prosperous businessman. All her breeding tells her that he’s scum, but her hormones don’t seem to care.
    Rising apparently is trying to illustrate a social phenomenon that he sees in post-earthquake San Francisco: the rise of the skilled workers, who rebuilt the city at union wages, and the corresponding decline of the old families, whose founders became rich during the Gold Rush but whose current members have left town or lost their wealth. If that’s his idea, he would have done better to focus on the transition rather than providing before-and-after views. Maybe he merely wants to present a tribulations-of-the-rich romance of the sort usually associated with Gertrude Atherton. In that case his characters needed to be more sympathetic and less stereotypical. As it is, readers are unlikely to care much about Fernanda, Patrick, or anyone else in the novel. A modern audience for this book is difficult to imagine.

SWANSON

    Swanson by Timothy Pember. Harcourt, Brace (1951), 280 pp.
    Humphrey Swanson, arrogant and reclusive, has just received a promotion in the English department on a Berkeleyesque campus. Respected as a scholar, he’s found only one colleague who appreciates his personal qualities. That’s Bob Richmond, whose affability masks a deep indecisiveness about his own future. Bob’s discontented wife, Margaret, wants him to finish his novel and abandon academe. His controlling mother, Edna, hopes he’ll follow his father into the upper professoriat. Humphrey tolerates Bob, dislikes Margaret, and tries to avoid his other acquaintances. Then on graduation day, after refusing to attend the ceremonies, Humphrey sees his cloistered life fall apart. He’s accused of indecent exposure by his landlady, haughtily refuses a jury trial, and is sentenced to two months in jail. All his colleagues, including Bob, shun him. The only person who visits him during his incarceration is Margaret.
    Pember presumably means this as a three-person character study, and the main characters do change substantially in response to the events of the story. Humphrey, in fact, is so transformed -- the criminal conviction dooms his academic career -- that only remnants of his former personality remain as he tries to establish a new life. Bob, meanwhile, undergoes unexpected mutations that the author never explains. These two characters do not quite come to life. Margaret, on the other hand, seems like a real person. She’s been discouraged by her husband from pursuing her wartime nursing studies (the novel is set in 1947) and increasingly sees herself as a minor assistant in his life. Her growing alienation from her marriage becomes the book’s most compelling theme. If the author had realized this, he might have put Margaret at center stage and relegated the less convincing male characters to the wings. As it is, the book offers an okay read but not quite a satisfying one.