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.