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Review Round-up: Kids these days

With the launch of two new young adult imprints (from established genre presses) in as many days, it may be time for quick trip down memory lane with some vintage tales.

In Hope Dahle Jordan's Take Me to My Friend (1962), seventeen year old Julie Jameson is faced with the biggest challenge of her life: driving from Florida to Illinois. Julie, her mother and her grandmother are all enjoying their time at the beach when they learn that Julie's father and uncle have been in a car crash. Her mother flies back, as there's no time to spare. This leaves Julie - indecisive, shy Julie - with the responsibility of driving her grandmother and all their stuff back. 

Poor Julie. From the opening pages, the reader is doused liberally in her insecurities. She's by no means a failure - good grades, good looking, good boyfriend, good future - but Julie's never been able to find her own way. "She feels unworthy of her parents", Julie describes herself (in the third person), "she wanted to be the bystander, not the star" (12). In fact, Julie only defines herself by her outgoing boyfriend, Peter. Slightly older and a much more dominant person, Peter lets Julie do what she wants: follow. 

The challenge of cross-country driving terrifies Julie. She's terrible behind the wheel and has no sense of direction. Plus, this is late December and the very idea of driving on snow (not a problem in Florida, but definitely a challenge once in the Midwest), leaves her petrified. Her grandmother is good company, but has her own (real) problems to deal with, like being very old and very ill. Julie exclaims for a bit, but is overruled. She's going to have to grow up and make the drive.

Underground Reading: The Reluctant Widow by Georgette Heyer

While on holiday recently, we discovered a trove of mid-century pulps in an appropriately sepulchral used book store. Although many were of the traditional sort, (dames n’ guns n’ lousy attitudes), there were a good number of lady-pulps, too: period romances by long-forgotten authors, with covers and cover-blurbs every bit as contrived, alluring, misleading, ridiculous and wonderful as their male counterparts.

I was particularly delighted to find a Georgette Heyer amongst the crowd.

Heyer got into novel writing because she loved Jane Austen, and wanted to fill the world with mannered romances, unencumbered with the breath-stealing prose and social conscience of the great Victorian novels. (Stupid boring poor people and their stupid boring problems.)  Her Regency romances were, for a while, very popular. But they’ve drifted out of the public consciousness, referenced now only occasionally by pulp enthusiasts and nostalgic romance fans.

Underground Reading: No Down Payment by John McPartland

No Down Payment (1957, with the 1960 cover shown here) was John McPartland’s breakthrough novel. Previously stuck in the 'wilds' of the Gold Medal jungle, No Down Payment, a fictional expose of the new suburban lifestyle, proved a top seller and was made into a movie featuring Joanne Woodward.

In 1957, the idea of suburban living was still something new. And, if the fiction is to be believed, the 'burbs were weird places. In their favor, the suburbs were crammed to the gills with the New People: the Up and Comers, the Success Stories.In Mr. McParland’s book, there’s a sort of desperate repetition of the “oh, aren’t we so lucky?” mantra.

Every Saturday the shops sell out of charcoal because every family cooks a perfect steak in the perfect weather on BBQ behind their perfect home. This is the age of easy credit and electric conveniences and all sorts of home wizardry. One man charmingly counts the motors in his home as a way of marking success – he grew up with none, now he has 15 (17, once he remembers the ones in the BBQ and rotisserie). [We could now do the same with computers, I suspect.]

Underground Reading: Nurse Kathryn and Night Club Nurse

A distinctly medicinal pair of reviews with Peggy O’More’s Nurse Kathryn and Rose Dana’s Night Club Nurse.

Peggy O'More's Nurse Kathryn (1965) follows the trials and tribulations of the titular nurse as she works at the psychiatric clinic of a mid-sized town. Kathryn’s life is, for the most part, perfect. Her fiancé, Jack, is a stoic, gentle man with a solid career and huge family. Her roommate, Bibi, is a vivacious sounding board – the wacky-yin to Kathryn’s buckled-down yang. Best of all, Kathryn’s ‘new’ psychiatrist – her boss – is the delicious and perceptive Dr. Lamont. He knows how to solve all the problems, especially when aided by Kathryn’s gossip and insight. The two team up to form an unstoppable pair of judgemental psychiatric juggernauts.

Of course, it isn’t all perfect, or else Nurse Kathryn would be an even duller book that it already is. Kathryn’s by-the-numbers life has some real problems, mostly having to do with Jack. His plodding attitude with Kathryn often borders on the careless – our protagonist’s life is one of broken dates and cold meals. Jack prioritises his sprawling family first, his career second and his future bliss with Kathryn a distant third. Kathryn tries to appreciate this. She’s the child of a fairly bizarre marriage – her father being an open-handed backwoods doctor and his wife a domineering shrew. Always conscious of her mother’s harpy ways, Kathryn tries to let Jack swing his own life. As a result, she’s been “practically engaged” for a long four years, with no end in sight.

The Repairer of Reputations: Blue-Bird Weather by Robert Chambers

“Quiet sea and quiet sky,
Idle sail and anchored boat,
Just a snowflake gull afloat,
Drifting like a feather—
And the gray hawk crying,
And a man's heart sighing—
That is blue-bird weather:—
And the high hawk crying,
And a maid's heart sighing
Till lass and lover come together,—
This is blue-bird weather.”

This winsome little ditty is at the heart of Robert Chambers' short novel, Blue-Bird Weather. First serialized in 1911, it was later published in its complete form in 1912. 

The story features Mr. Marche, the very model of the Chambersian hero. He's young, straight-limbed, fair-haired scion of an upper-crust family. He's taken his family business (something white collar and vaguely finance-y), carried it through times good and bad and now, he's off on a well-deserved vacation. 

Underground Reading: Bachelors Anonymous by Vivian Connell

Bachelors Anonymous (1957) is a novel of two halves. Or, more accurately, it is two completely different novels wrapped in the same cover. The first half is the silly story of "Hearts Ahoy" - a group that's less "therapy for sex addicts" and more an underground guerilla movement battling the feminist overlords. The second half, called "The Three Mr. Browns" is a thoroughly-serious tale of international espionage. The two are connected by a minor character and the glue of the book's spine.

For the first part, the book is the first-person narrative of Ward Woodham. Ward is a stereotypical, all-American Harvard boy. He's blessed with a silver spoon, a lantern jaw and the hormones of a 13 year old. His future in the import/export business looks bright - except a little hanky-panky with a client's wife soon backfires. Woodham's boss recommends the discreet "Hearts Ahoy" service as a cure.

It seems that Ward isn't the first man to let a woman make a fool of him. "Hearts Ahoy" is for the situation where a man accidentally picks up a woman and is about to accidentally be in a situation where they accidentally have sex. A member can pick up the phone, dial a number and - within minutes - a fellow "Hearts Ahoy" member will arrive and bail him out him with a phony emergency.

Underground Reading: His Own Man by Martha Gellhorn

His Own Man (expressively written as His OWN Man on the cover) is a 1962 novel set in beautiful, cosmopolitan Paris. Billed as a "hilarious" comedy, this is actually one of the more depressing novels I've read recently - a short tale of ruthless comeuppance disguised as a sex farce.

American Ben Eckhardt is determined not to leave Paris. He's in his early 30s and, despite being completely broke, he's having the time of his life. Ben's getting his graduate degree in Sinology, a process he's managed to drag out for years and years - doing just well enough to keep his scholarship, but avoiding anything that might lead to completing his work. He spends his days wandering around the museums, his weekends exploring the parks and his nights mooching beer and wine from parties. Ben has two traits that make this life possible: he's astoundingly easy-going and he's extraordinarily handsome. Everyone loves a pleasant hottie.

Ben's routine is disrupted by a hot cup of coffee. Jessica de Camberges is a willowy blonde who gets over her guilt of being born (filthy) rich by spending every waking hour volunteering at a charity for refugees. Her parents are continually baffled by her, but accept that she's just a little insane. An early marriage (and subsequent divorce) has made Jessica especially awkward around men. However, when she spills Ben's coffee, Jessica is wracked by a sort of liberal guilt that overpowers even her reclusive nature. He's poor, she's rich - she owes him for the cup of coffee and he won't take her money. 

Underground Reading: Pageant by Lee E. Wells

Pageant (1966) is an epic of the American dream.

It is a tale of progress and tradition and those social forces that separate the two. It is a story of an Anytown that could be an Everytown; of people just like you and me, and their struggles to stand up. Be counted. To mean, rather than to seem. But - more than that - it is a tale of breasts.

Artesa is a city somewhere in California. It is old-ish but not particularly spectacular - a one traffic-light town. The town's old money is both extremely old and extremely moneyed, with the same names dominating Artesa's clubs, Chamber of Commerce and city council.

The book follows two young men: Lew Carey and Reid Barton. Lew is an accountant and the latest in a long line of Artesian Careys. He's a club-joining, council-member type with a busty girlfriend who puts out, but he still wants a little more out of life. At the start of the book, he's doing some emergency tax work for one of the idle super-rich types outside of town. This gives him a chance to wax poetic about his mixed feelings. He loves Artesa, but he's ready for some changes. As Lew speaks, his roving eye picks up everything in a skirt and/or swimsuit. It becomes readily apparent that he's looking for a few changes of his own.

The Repairer of Reputations: The Fighting Chance by Robert Chambers

The Fighting Chance (1906) is another society romance by Robert Chambers, intentionally written in the same vein as the other "popular phrase" series, such as The Danger Mark and The Firing Line. (These were all popular phrases, honest!)

The central plot, as with these other two, is a somewhat-star-crossed romance. Boy meets girl, boy loses girl, boy is thrown out of exclusive New York clubs and takes to drink, boy finds girl again. In the course of meeting/losing/finding, the boy and girl in question both reveal their shameful inner weaknesses  and, eventually, come to the conclusion that they should marry regardless. There's not a lot of mystery in what will happen, merely in how it comes about.

In The Fighting Chance, the romantic core of the book is provided by Stephen Siward and Sylvia Landis. The two meet in the first pages of the book, fall in love in the first few chapters, and spend the rest of the 400-odd pages trying desperately to keep one another at arm's length (and ultimately failing to do so).

The Repairer of Reputations: The Firing Line by Robert Chambers

Despite the martial title, The Firing Line (1908) only has a single shot fired within its 498 pages, but that one's a doozy. The other 497 pages are about more metaphorical battlefields: the bloody crossfire of convention and the gallant charges of romance. If The Firing Line lacks in action, it overcompensates with a surplus of wit.

The primary storyline follows the star-crossed romance of Garret Hamil and Shiela Cardross. Garret is a landscape designer of great reputation (and presumably talent), recently arrived in Florida to undertake a commission on behalf of Cardross Senior, financial magnate.

Shiela is his daughter - she encounters Hamil twice by accident. The two charm one another in fabled fashion, but by the time they are officially introduced, Hamil understands the truth: Shiela is adopted. The Hamils, we learn, are one of the oldest and most storied names in Society - to mingle with an adoptee of unknown heritage is, well... not to be.