Reading California Fiction

VIEW FROM A WINDOW

    View from a Window by F. Ruth Howard. Morrow (1942), 341 pp.
    The snowstorm on a fall day in 1941 signals bad news for beautiful concert pianist Janet Elliot. News of her divorce hits the New York papers. Analysis of the injury to her hand, incurred in a horse riding accident, shows that she will never play again. And, worse yet, she learns that her beloved younger brother, an RAF pilot, has been killed in action. Janet decides to follow the brother’s earlier advice and try to return their horse, McTavish, to competitive steeplechase racing. That entails a move to a training facility in California, specifically to an inn in the hills east of San Diego. There she meets Richard Olivant, a tall and masterful ex-college professor with a cynical streak. He’s also training a horse -- Fitzgerald, his large and sleek black stallion -- for steeplechase competition. Will the rival trainers get along?
    A silly question, of course. The novel convincingly traces Janet’s deepening feelings for Olivant, her growing ability to control McTavish, and her brightening attitude toward the future. The book has less success unraveling Olivant’s personality, which may be appropriate because the story is told entirely from Janet’s viewpoint. The credibility of the training scenes can probably only be judged by horse-lovers. Any reader, however, will be able to appreciate the climactic scene at the racetrack, which is told with power and verve. Less impressive are Howard’s descriptions of landscape, which lack context, and her persistent use of fictional place names (such as the Italian “San Pietro” for San Diego). Fortunately, some stylistic affectations at the start of the book disappear after a few chapters. All in all, modern readers seeking a love story with horses (or a horse story with lovers) are likely to enjoy the book.

FLOWER OF THE WORLD

    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.

THE STARLING

    The Starling by Juliet Wilbor Tompkins. Bobbs-Merrill (1919), 267 pp.
    Eleven-year-old Sarah Cawthorne, who relies on her imagination to keep herself amused, wants to give a party. She’s being home-schooled, has no friends, and seldom leaves her yard, which is surrounded by a high hedge. Her father, a language professor at Berkeley, will never allow any partying -- or any noise at all. Complete silence is one of the commands he’s issued to Sarah and her perpetually fearful mother. Nevertheless, they plan the event behind his back and hold it when he’s out of town. The party is a huge success, due to the help of teenage  go-getter Robert Russell. Sarah garners invitations in return. In other homes she’s startled to see friendly fathers and unterrorized families. For the first time she realizes that she must try to break free.
    The story skips ahead ten years. Still stuck at home, Sarah confronts her father, demanding some acknowledgment of her personhood. In a blood-chilling scene, so vivid that readers will suspect the author experienced something like it in real life, he dismisses her concerns with flippancy and disdain. The portait of Sarah’s mother, a frail and kindly woman living in complacent subjugation, is similarly dismaying. Tompkins’ story is perhaps grimmer than she intended, but it’s far from a tale of hopelessness. Sarah begins a career and develops some attachments to the opposite sex. The book ends on a happy note but still leaves issues unresolved. Stories of family life seem to appeal to women more than men, which may explain why novels on the subject from the past have languished in obscurity. The Starling, however, like other books from its era, is now easily accessible. So it could find an appreciative audience among female readers.

THE DAY OF SOULS

    The Day of Souls by Charles Tenney Jackson. Bobbs-Merrill (1910), 390 pp.
    John Hamilton Arnold is a frequent and welcome visitor to the bars, restaurants and theaters of San Francisco’s raucous tenderloin district. Once a a college student then a soldier, he now works as an operative for the city’s corrupt political machine. Arnold has a wide circle of colorful friends and associates. Among them are fellow residents of Granny Granberry’s rooming house: disillusioned party girl Nella Free, lame but cheerful sales clerk Mary Mellody, slot-machine distributor Louis Ferrari, and frail and penurious Captain Calhoun, a Civil War veteran futilely waiting for his dead son to return from the Philippines. Arnold is successful, but the tawdriness of his life is getting him down. He hopes he can turn things around by marrying Sylvia Spring, a loyal and pure young heiress from the north woods. Only at the last moment does he decide that the love of a good woman won’t help him if he doesn’t love her in return. He then focuses his hopes for redemption on Grace Wayne, a sort of New Age sidewalk preacher with problems of her own.
    Jackson’s picture of pre-earthquake San Francisco is vivid and variegated. Although he focuses on the more disreputable members of society, he makes it clear that they are part of a system that functions for the benefit of the rich and powerful. It also keeps people in place, so Arnold’s effort to extricate himself is believably difficult and complicated. Jackson creates a large cast of characters, each conflicted in some way, and manages to keep their many stories under control. More than that, he presents the charcters with a remarkable objectivity and lack of moralizing. (I was expecting Nella Free to die for her sins, as she would have in The Heart Line and most other novels of the period. Jackson, however, stays clear of phony retribution.) The Day of Souls ranks among the most important fictional accounts of San Francisco. Now readily available on demand and via download, it is essential reading for those interested in California history.