Big Game

Posted on January 31, 2026 by thegoodbadbook

Big Game by Vida Hurst is a classic example from my Grosset & Dunlap romance collection, including the Skrenda dust jacket.  It was published by Grosset & Dunlap in 1928 with The Bell Syndicate, Inc. listed as the original newspaper syndication run.  Vida Hurst was an incredibly prolific writer and is the most heavily represented author in my collection, with “Rob Eden” (the joint pseudonym of Robert and Eve Burkhardt) being the only other author who even comes close.

Each of the Vida Hurst books I’ve read so far includes a lesson or warning for readers, either as the main plot driver or as a supporting story.  On my initial read through, I thought the moral of the story of Big Game is a warning to stay away from married men, doubly so if the man is your best friend’s husband!  “The season for hunting other women’s husbands is always closed” (119).  However, the more I thought about the final obstacle the characters overcome, the more it felt like Big Game is more of a morality tale cautioning women against casual flirtations with men.  Both takeaways are muddied by – spoiler – the main character ending up with the married man in the end.

In wanting more context for Big Game, I used my library card to access the Newspaper Archive database.  There, I found an author interview about Big Game from the June 27, 1928 issue of The Winona Republican-Herald, page 5.  The article title reads, “Women Need Pedestals:  Author Warns of Lure of New Freedom.”  Hurst is quoted, “Mona is a pursuer of freedom.  She is disposed to disregard the rules of the ‘big game’ – or at least the rules set up by convention and society… [Women] (sic) should not forsake the pedestals upon which men have placed them in their pursuit of what may be a mirage.”

Big Game, set in Minneapolis, is the story of three best friends: Mona, Mabel, and Ruth.  The story opens with bratty Mabel throwing a tantrum that her fiancé is about to miss a masked costume ball.  The three best friends attend the ball in matching elaborate butterfly costumes.  Mona is intrigued by a handsome stranger who asks her to kiss him at midnight.  “‘You’ve never kissed me like that before,’ he whispered.  Mona tore off her mask.  ‘Oh, I beg your pardon,’ he stammered, ‘I thought you were someone else'” (9).  And that’s how we’re introduced to Mabel’s fiancé, Bruce Berlon.

Mona Darien flirts easily with men but finds herself instantly smitten with Bruce.  She has a handful of recurring beaus, including Johnnie Merril the childhood friend and Dan McIntyre of dubious reputation.  One character she confides in scolds her early on in all caps, “NICE GIRLS DON’T PET” (22).  Ruth Morehouse rounds out the friend group.  She’s homely and conservative.  Mona is surprised to find herself being unfavorably compared to Ruth by several characters throughout the story.  “You’re fascinating and men will always be crazy about you but Ruth is the kind of a girl every man has enshrined in his heart… They’ll make love to you but it’s the Ruths they marry” (118).  I’ve read some variation on that line countless times in books from my collection.

Mabel and Bruce return from their honeymoon.  Bruce is accepted into the friends group and Mona forms an easy friendship with him.  However, Bruce and Mabel’s marriage is off to a rocky start.  Mabel pressures Bruce to leave his position in Chicago and find work in Minneapolis.  Then she insists on an apartment that is beyond his means.  She wins the apartment argument by insinuating that Bruce and Mona are together too often, which then strains Bruce and Mona’s friendship.

What happens next is an uncomfortable read.  Bruce and Mona go on a picnic alone where Bruce admits his marriage to Mabel is “a terrible mistake” and they each declare feelings for each other.  Then, for about the next hundred or so pages, Bruce and Mona call each other on the sly and share stolen moments they both know aren’t right, insisting that each time is the last.  During this, they are spotted by different men in the friends group, who all warn Mona (but not Bruce?) that they saw her and to cease.  The most scandalous incident is when Bruce and Mona become stranded in a storm together and have a stolen hour in an abandoned cottage before they are found.

To be clear to readers unfamiliar with romances of this era and from this publisher, this is a low to no spice story that circulated in newspapers across the country.  Big Game is tame, and even quaint, by today’s standards.  Hurst describes an inappropriate relationship, but it’s never explicit.  She’s effective in making it uncomfortable though, at least to this reader.

Bruce resolves to leave Mabel.  It’s then revealed that Mabel is pregnant.  It’s not a happy announcement, least of all for Mabel, who had always declared she would never want children.  Bruce and Mona admit to each other that, “Mabel is the heaviest loser” (190) in the situation.  Bruce regretfully reflects, “I had no business making plans for a future with you until I was free.”  Mona departs for NYC, receiving regular letters from the domestic Ruth who excitedly writes about sewing baby clothes and about Mabel’s continued hysterics.

Mabel dies in childbirth.  It is both foreshadowed and shocking.  Earlier in the story, when Mabel had secretly suspected she was pregnant but before it was revealed, she was often melancholy, declaring suddenly, “It isn’t fair.  Beautiful things should live – ALWAYS” (124).  Mona reflects that Mabel likely already knew she would be “forced” (217) to have a baby and how furious Mabel had been.  Considering that in 1928, Mabel didn’t really have a choice, it’s tragic.  Earlier in the novel, it had been established that Mabel had a cardiac condition.  Similar to most other times illness is discussed or described within the books in my collection, the portrayal is not very sympathetic, often implying or even outright stating that the poor health of a character is their choice.  It’s infuriating.

Mona eventually returns to Minneapolis.  With Bruce working full time and Mabel’s mother mentally unwell in her grief, Ruth has stepped in to raise baby Daphne.  Mona’s friendship with Ruth becomes strained.  “Without Mabel they seemed to have little in common.  Was it because of their unspoken rivalry over Bruce?” (244).  Mona’s opinion on Ruth had been less than kind, even before this.  For a story of three friends, Mona is a terrible friend to Ruth and even more so to Mabel.  With friends like Mona, who needs enemies?

Correctly guessing at Bruce’s guilt, Mona is unsure how to win him back.  “He was more faithful to Mabel after death than he had been when she was living” (234).  Bruce admits, “I wish that we had waited until now.  That we might have had no regrets” (251).

Here’s where the moral about staying away from married men is then upstaged by “NICE GIRLS DON’T PET.”  Bruce declares that he can’t trust Mona, not because of anything to do with his doomed marriage to Mabel, but because of Mona’s continuing casual affiliation with Dan McIntyre.  “I don’t want you if you’re going to love somebody else the moment my back is turned” (249).  That’s awfully rich coming from the guy who was sharing stolen moments with Mona while he was married to Mabel.  I turn again to that Winona Republican-Herald author interview.  From Hurst, “Men, after all, are the umpires in the ‘big game.'”

Bruce notices Dan driving up to Mona’s house, and leaves town in a huff.  He’s leaving for Chicago and is already on the train when he turns back.  What made him return?  It was the memory of the stolen hour in the cottage during the storm!  Ugh.  So the story ends with the happy reunion because of the extra-marital moments of indiscretion?

“‘Darling, how could I have doubted you?’  ‘Don’t,’ she begged, and drawing his mouth to hers, came swiftly to life…  THE END.”

Good luck to these guys.  This seems more like a Happy For Now ending than a Happily Ever After to me.  At least it’s heavily implied that Ruth is well on her way to marrying a wholesome young doctor and will soon have her own Happily Ever After.  Good for Ruth.

Copies of Vida Hurst’s works are available for purchase here.

Posted in 1920s, Grosset and Dunlap, Skrenda, Vida Hurst | 2 Comments

The Flat Tire

Posted on August 3, 2025 by thegoodbadbook

“Poor Viv!  She sure is one grand sample of what I call a flat tire.”

I’m delighted to be returning to the work of Alma Sioux Scarberry.  Back when I read High Hat in 2014, I linked to archival finding aids for Scarberry that included biographical information.  Since nothing is forever, and that’s doubly true on the internet, the links no longer worked.  I revised that post and updated the links.  They work again!  For now.  Also, if anyone would like to read The Flat Tire, it is available for free in full via HathiTrust here.  Spoilers ahead!

The Flat Tire, published in 1930, is a classic example from my Grosset & Dunlap “Sparkling Romances of The Modern Girl” collection.  Aside from a few imperfections in my copy, this book has everything:  a funny title, a 1929 initial syndication run from The Central Press Association, and fantastic Mach Tey dust jacket illustration that makes zero sense.  It depicts a beach; the vast majority of this book is set in Kansas.  Grosset & Dunlap later recycled this dust jacket design in 1933 for another Scarberry novel, Puppy Love.

The opening of The Flat Tire finds Vivian Matthews sulking at home.  Known as the town’s “flat tire,” Vivian was brought up by Martha Matthews after mysteriously landing on the doorstep of her plain cottage many years ago.  She’s often miserable and tongue tied.  With no new dresses, no adventures, and precious few friends, she’s devastated when her longtime crush, Kent Johns, rich, tall, and freshly graduated from the University of Kansas, stops by and teases her that she ought to be married soon.  Kent is expected to wed the town belle, Dovie Jansen.

After that opening, I wondered why the 1934 movie adaptation of The Flat Tire is titled Hired Wife.  Then, Dovie jilts Kent for a Count von Popper in Europe, and Kent offers Vivian a cash arrangement to marry him for a year so that he can inherit his late grandfather’s million.  After a year, Kent will give her a divorce in Paris and a hundred thousand dollars.  I guess that’s why the movie title is Hired Wife!  In making the proposal, Kent throws his hat in the ring to win an award for the worst and least flattering proposal ever, “I want to marry someone I am sure I could never fall in love with… You have no one to care whether you do this or not” (24).  Instead of telling Kent to take a hike, Vivian thinks it over and accepts, hoping to win his affections of the course of the year.

What happens next isn’t subtle.  The novel’s plot resembles a rough arc of Vivian being initially propped up with material luxuries, finding her way, and then continuing to make her way without them.

Vivian returns from her honeymoon with a full makeover, a wardrobe of expensive clothing, a quippy French maid, and an admirer, the famous illustrator Mann Barkow.  Still, “she felt just as inferior and just as shy as Mrs. Johns as she had felt as Vivian Matthews” (71).  To make matters worse, Dovie returns to town, without the Count, and appears intent on making amends with Kent.  Soon thereafter, Kent strays from home often, and it’s clear to the entire town of Bender, Kansas, who he is with.

By the time Vivian clashes with Kent about his dalliances with Dovie, it’s clear how far she’s come from chapter one.  Vivian and a few friends decide to “go stepping” to a brand new road house known as “The Whoopee,” where they see Kent with Dovie.  The next morning, when Kent decides to tell Vivian that “she had better watch her step” and not to disgrace him, she lets him have it.  “I don’t give two hoots what you think about what I do.  Not after what you have done and said…  Don’t think for one little minute I don’t understand perfectly what is going on between you and Dovie” (118-119).

Meanwhile, Vivian poses for Mann Barkow and he teaches her to fly.  Vivian takes to the air and Mann sells her a plane, The Moonshine.  His portrait of her in her flying suit, titled “The Ace of Hearts” is a smash hit.  Her friend Cuddles, home from a failed launch in Broadway, advises Vivian to leverage her portrait fame into a Hollywood career.  A lawyer turns up and promises Vivian answers about her family background, soon.  When Kent comments that Vivian seems changed, she answers, “The change… I owe entirely to you, Mister Johns.  Or your money, rather” (153).  Then the dominoes begin to fall.

First, Vivian loses her guardian, Aunt Martha.  When the community of Bender offers their condolences, Vivian reflects of herself and her late guardian, “we didn’t know how many friends we had” (180).

Next, a literal cyclone sweeps through and destroys the Johns family mansion, all of Vivian’s wardrobe, and critically injures the French maid, who spends much of the rest of the book recovering in a hospital.  Undeterred by the storm, Vivian flies The Moonshine to neighboring Salina and brings back two doctors with supplies to help the injured.  Martha’s cottage, left to Vivian and untouched by the cyclone, becomes a relief center for neighbors in need.

Then, Kent loses the entirety of the million he had inherited from his grandfather.  He had been boasting of a get-rich-quick plan to invest and triple his inheritance.  Instead, he loses every penny within hours on Wall Street.  This plot point was so unbelievably severe that I had to stop reading and ask my husband, an economist, whether options trading existed back then.  The original syndication run of The Flat Tire in 1929 was months before the famous crash, too.

Vivian realizes she doesn’t feel badly about her clothes or Kent’s fortune.  “She was nearer to Kent this way” (211) and she excitedly feels more like a “real wife” by keeping house, cooking, even washing and mending clothes.  She decides that the cottage she grew up in had been bleak, but that had been in part of her own doing, and could be easily amended with some cheerful redecorating.

The lawyer returns and it is revealed that Vivian, not Kent, is the true Johns heir.  She receives half a million dollars from the estate of Kent’s eccentric grandfather, who in a convoluted plot, had switched out the true Johns heir for another baby because he had wanted a grandson.  Vivian decides to use some of the money to relaunch Kent’s business, which had been wiped out in the cyclone.  By the end of the novel, she decides to give away most of the inheritance and never reveal that she’s the rightful Johns heir.

Next up, Vivian loses the affections of her sophisticated admirer, Mann Barkow.  Mann returns to New York and promises Vivian he’ll marry her after her divorce.  When Vivian writes that she won’t marry him after all, Mann wastes no time in marrying her best friend, Cuddles, who has joined him in New York and launched a Broadway career, successfully this time.  Many of Scarberry’s novels have a performing arts element.  In The Flat Tire, that is more obliquely represented with Cuddles’s character.

As I said, The Flat Tire never aims for subtlety.  The small town of Bender, Kansas, is almost a character in itself, and is most certainly a litmus test for whether a character is “good” or not.  For example, Mann Barkow takes to Bender and defends it, saying the people of Bender, “live like human beings… and are honest, upright real Americans” (74).  Meanwhile, Dovie and her mother show disdain for Bender, and return to Paris at the first available opportunity.  Near the end of the story, Bender fully embraces Vivian, as she and Kent begin receiving invitations from the mayor and his wife, and it’s the town’s judge who finally gives a rambling monologue to Kent to talk sense into him.

The final culminating loss is The Moonshine and Vivian’s love of flying.  The Moonshine crashes.  Kent pulls Vivian from the wreck and declares his love for her as she convalesces.  In the final sentences of the book, Vivian reflects on her “unspeakable happiness.”

More books with wonderful Mach Tey illustrated dust jackets are available for purchase here.

Posted in 1930s, Alma Sioux Scarberry, Grosset and Dunlap, Mach Tey | 3 Comments

Shore Excursion

Posted on June 2, 2025 by thegoodbadbook

Looking for a gently amusing read that includes a Transatlantic voyage?  Then I’d recommend Shore Excursion!  It’s a low-stakes romance from 1936 written by one of Penn Publishing’s more obscure writers, Elizabeth Hall Yates.

My copy of Shore Excursion came from Yesterday’s Gallery and Babylon Revisited Rare Books.  Like all of my Penn Publishing books, my copy includes the perforated bookmark still attached to the front flap.  The bookmark contains an author photo and lists four of her titles.  The front flap also mentions that Shore Excursion was not published serially.

In my search to learn more about Elizabeth Hall Yates, I struck gold with Brief Biographies of Some Well-Known Authors and Illustrators, available online through Internet Archive.  Based on the published books listed, I’d venture a guess that Brief Biographies was published sometime in 1929.  Yates’s biography mentions that she was born in New York City, went to school at Columbia University, and loves to travel abroad.  “My chief amusement is traveling, and I usually find material for my stories while I am touring.”

That brings us to Shore Excursion, even though the traveling aspect of this romance doesn’t set sail until halfway into the story.

Imogene Ingalls meets handsome stranger John Casablanca when a breeze catches her new spring hat, whisking it away towards Casablanca, who is seated on a nearby open top bus and saves the day by returning her hat.  Their meet cute is exciting and thrilling!  That’s chapter one.  Chapter two’s meet cute stands in stark contrast.

Imogene’s friends Rita and Jim Hamilton routinely invite her over in an attempt to set her up with Jim’s various friends, all “agreeable and equally unromantic.”  This evening’s offering is Hal Kitchell, newly arrived from a cattle farm in Wisconsin.  Imogene wonders how her New York City friends know Hal, a good question which is never answered.  Hal wears an unfashionable thick gold watch chain across the front of his waistcoat.  He shakes Imogene’s hand too firmly.  It’s implied in a few instances throughout the book that he has a Midwestern accent (the horror!).

Suave John Casablanca stands in sharp juxtaposition to Hal Kitchell.  John Casablanca is Italian, handsome, charming, romantic, and engaged to someone else, but Imogene finds herself drawn to him.  Unfortunately, Shore Excursion makes use of unsavory Italian stereotypes of the era as well when describing Casablanca.  In contrast, Hal Kitchell is solid, dependable, way less exciting than Casablanca, and Imogene is indifferent to him.

Independent Imogene sees her plans change when she loses her job as a fashion writer.  Hal takes the opportunity to propose marriage, which Imogene reluctantly accepts.  Whereas Imogene had once been planning an elaborate business trip to Europe with Casablanca, now she unenthusiastically mentions her upcoming honeymoon trip to him.  The night of her engagement party, she sees the ship Casablanca will be sailing on.  She impulsively dumps Hal, dashes home to pack, and arrives at the ship ten minutes before its midnight sailing.

Her eccentric Aunt Anna receives the news with, “I won’t let her do it.  She’s got to be stopped” (159) and recruits Hal to intercept the ship at its next stop.  Yates is careful to make Hal’s intentions noble here.  Hal goes along with Aunt Anna’s plans not because he doesn’t accept Imogene’s rejection, but because Aunt Anna has convinced Hal that Imogene may be in need of saving.  A triumphant Aunt Anna declares that her niece will be “well chaperoned” on this voyage!

With that, the overlong exposition that is literally half the book, the stage is set.  The Lombardia ship provides a finite amount of space for these characters to have it out:  Imogene set on winning Casablanca, Casablanca up for an affair but not marriage, sharp-witted Aunt Anna ready to maneuver her niece away from such an affair, and decent spurned gentleman Hal there to assist.  Into the mix arrives a supporting character of playwright Gates Morgan, available as a friend and confidant to Imogene, always ready with a clever plan.  As Yates was a playwright herself, it’s hard not to see the rhyming-named Gates as a bit of a stand-in character, with some different biographical details.

When playwright Gates Morgan accidentally has Imogene join him at the ship’s bachelors’ table, “this was the beginning of what she always afterward considered her Musical Comedy Week at sea” (223).  I would have loved for more “Musical Comedy Week,” which was more of a passing phase of the story.  However, it is from observing some of Imogene’s shenanigans with Gates Morgan that Aunt Anna gives the best line of the book, “There’s the luncheon gong.  I’m going below and [sic] drown my disgust in a bowl of minestrone.  I advise you do the same” (217).

While the ship confines the characters to small spaces all in view and often earshot of each other, the shore excursions give characters a chance to have things out.  In the first shore excursion, Imogene gets her alone time with Casablanca.  He finally proposes, “You will marry me, Imogene.  I can see it is the only way.  It will mean misery for us both in the end” (260).  Imogene gives the obvious response about what a horrible proposal that is, and ends up changing her mind about him.  My copy of Shore Excursion contains a signed “Pledge of the Legion of Decency” tucked into the pages where Casablanca sweeps Imogene into his arms, shortly before her thanks but no thanks moment.  Imogene returns to the ship, and tells Aunt Anna that John Casablanca is a “bum.”  Really, that’s the exact word she uses!

The second shore excursion is executed by Aunt Anna, but the idea comes from Gates Morgan.  “It has always been my method in playwriting to pit one character against another, then to sit back and watch them work out their own destinies” (281).  They decide that if some time alone split the ill-suited pairing of Imogene and Casablanca, then maybe time alone would have the opposite outcome for Imogene and Hal.  Aunt Anna plans a shore excursion for them in Lisbon.  She acts as tour guide, making sure to recommend her favorite hotel, before ditching the pair.  “Never had she experienced such a frantic drive as the one back to the boat… In fact, Miss Parker – climbing aboard ten seconds before the gangplank was lowered – greeted Gates Morgan with triumph in her eye” (299).  Eventually feeling guilty for stranding the unwitting couple in Lisbon, Aunt Anna sends a telegram to the hotel, and receives a response that Hal and Imogene are now happily married.  Gates declares “curtain!”

In Brief Biographies of Some Well-Known Authors and Illustrators, Yates reflects on her work.  “So far, my work hasn’t brought me a villa on the Riviera or a custom-built car, but I have the satisfaction of rather enjoying doing it, more, probably, than I’d enjoy doing any other kind of work. And it gives me a wonderful excuse to pack up and hop on a boat or a train whenever I feel particularly footloose. So that while I’m not altogether content with my work, I must admit that I’m very grateful for it.”

Copies of Elizabeth Hall Yates’s works are available for purchase here.

Posted in 1930s, Elizabeth Hall Yates, Penn Publishing Company | 2 Comments

Good Times

Posted on September 8, 2024 by thegoodbadbook

Good Times by Ethel Hueston“Good times are coming.”

Good Times has been a long time coming.  It’s a long story, but Good Times was the first book I ever ordered that was lost in transit, or more likely, stolen.  “Good Times never arrived” became a punch line.  Seven years later, I purchased this beautiful copy from Babylon Revisited and Yesterday’s Gallery.  Then it took me another five years to read this highly anticipated addition to the collection.  Finally, Good Times!

Published in 1932 by Bobbs-Merrill, Good Times falls around the middle of Ethel Hueston’s writing career.  Best known for her Prudence series, Hueston was born in the midwest to a large Methodist family.  The biography on Good Times’s dust jacket states that she lived in various parts of the country, including the Black Hills of South Dakota, and that she enjoyed the great outdoors and traveling around the country by car, all of which is reflected in the story.

Darcy Wiles is down on her luck.  Broke, facing eviction, and with few options, she decides to head westward to find her fortune.  Three of her friends, Ellena, Bernadine, and Bertie, decide to join her as their current fortunes mostly resemble Darcy’s.  They decide to shrug off capitalism, declare themselves communists, and will leave New York to start a commune and shoot buffalo.

It’s all very tongue-in-cheek, a tone Good Times carries throughout as Hueston gently ribs her characters.  She pokes fun of their misplaced New York snobbery and terrible sense of geography.  Darcy declares, “why, they tell me that out west in states on the Pacific coast like Ohio and Indiana they’ll pay a good New Yorker spot cash just to stand around and let them look at his brains” (28).  None of the characters are terribly serious and they stumble about the country in a series of misadventures.  Good Times is a classic road trip novel of friends in search of their next adventure.  But first they need a car.

The Crusaders, as Hueston calls the group, pawn their belongings to start a Common Fund, with Darcy in charge and everyone allotted an allowance.  They find a ride out of town at night with a man known as Bug.  Their friends see them off with a large homemade banner, lots of cheers, and Bertie plays the ukulele.  Their ride with Bug goes well until it doesn’t.  With Philadelphia on the horizon, the police give chase and it’s revealed that Bug is a bootlegger.  The Crusaders spend their first night on the road in jail.  “Well, we save a night’s rent by it anyhow,” (63) says Darcy.

Bug feels terrible about the ordeal, and gives the Crusaders an address where they can find their next ride west to Pittsburgh.  Ellena is against it but Bertie is in favor because, “Mr. Stuyvesant is a good respectable name” (73).  Mr. Stuyvesant offers the group a top-of-the-line, beautiful, imported armored car for… one dollar.  It seems too good to be true!  No one can figure out the catch, but everyone is frightened by the seediness of the situation.  In the end, Mr. Stuyvesant disguises himself as Ellena and uses the group to smuggle him out of town.  Ellena is returned to the group, shaken but unharmed.

The group begins to grow as they head further west.  They come upon a religious camp meeting in Ohio and are invited to stay for a chicken dinner by the singer Brother Bud Nickerson.  Brother Bud is drawn to travel, and asks if he can join the group.  He pushes back on their secular communistic philosophies, “To run a close-up corporation like yours, ‘pears like you ought to have ever’body thinkin’ alike – thinkin’ the same thing, believein’ the same thing, and wantin’ the same out of life.  And religion’s the only thing people gen’rally can believe in” (124).  In Chicago, Ellena begins accompanying Brother Bud’s singing on her mandolin, and they become the only members of the group able to earn a decent salary, which isn’t enough to sustain everyone.

The next recruit is discovered by Bertie.  Bertie is a bit of a loose cannon when it comes to love.  He frequently and quickly falls passionately in love, and then back out again just as quickly.  In Iowa, Bertie disappears for a few days and then returns, insisting that his new love Muriel join the group.  Everyone aside from Bertie is reluctant.  And sure enough, after they leave Iowa, the Crusaders are horrified to learn that Muriel is a minor and they’ve transported her over state lines while her influential father has the police searching for her.  Muriel cheerfully writes to her father that she married Bertie when in fact they are hardly speaking.

Mount Rushmore welcomes the group to the Black Hills of South Dakota.  The group watches the in-progress monument take shape.  Washington is completed and Lincoln and Jefferson are just beginning to emerge.  Borglum the sculptor introduces himself to the group.

Darcy discovers a perfect estate in the beautiful oasis of Black Hills, and seeks out its ill-tempered owner, Mr. Akerson.  Hale Akerson considers himself down and out.  Now in his mid-to-late thirties, he used to be a millionaire investor living in California, but most of his investments dried up, his health deteriorated, he traded his land in California for the estate in Black Hills, but had a hate at first sight reaction to seeing it and has been recuperating offsite with a local cowboy named Bad Eye Bill since.  He agrees to let Darcy and her friends move into the compound, on the condition that he and Bad Eye Bill join them as boarders.  “We’ll have a blood-red communist out of you in no time at all,” Darcy declares (192).

The group settles into their glorious new home and sets about building their fortunes.  They even discover gold!  However, bickering and clashing personalities rule the group more than Darcy does.  Muriel is knowledgable about running a farm and has good managerial sense, but is the ultimate manager who excels at delegation but never lifts a finger herself.  She frequently clashes with both Bernadine and Bertie.  Bernadine refuses to do any more work than Muriel, Ellena is inefficient and her work often needs redoing, and Bertie tends to have “artistic inspiration” at whatever moment he nearly threatens to be useful.  Bad Eye Bill and Bud end up doing most of the work around the land while Darcy does most of the housework.  On top of that, the group begins receiving threatening messages from the KKK while Muriel’s father announces he will be visiting imminently.

Muriel’s father becomes the final and least likely addition to the group.  Affectionately called “Pop” by all, his visit raises everyone’s spirits.  Even Muriel and Bernadine enjoy a temporary truce.  However, as Pop’s visit winds down, the threats from the KKK ramp up.

The group disbands, but not as a joint decision.  Rather, everyone couples off and runs away together all on the same day.  Bad Eye Bill receives an excellent job offer from Lazy H Ranch and Muriel wishes to join him, as his wife.  Muriel will now have an entire ranch to lend her verbal expertise!  Mr. Akerson knows of this plan and brings Darcy into town to be a witness and celebrate their elopement.  They return to a suspiciously quiet house and find a note from Bud and Ellena that they’ve decided to get married and return to the world of camp meetings at a nearby Methodist Park.  Darcy waits for the others and receives a phone call from Bernadine that she’s married Pop and is setting out on a honeymoon.  She also tells Darcy that Bertie has run off to be with nearby cowgirls.  Darcy and Mr. Akerson are truly alone.

As night falls, the group calling themselves the KKK approaches.  Mr. Akerson reveals them as three imposters who had been squatting on his land and panning for gold, which was why they wanted the Crusaders gone.  Rather than view them as hateful criminals, Mr. Akerson choses to treat them as down and out miners.  He generously offers to let them work for him panning gold for shares and to move their families into nearby houses.  “As a self-respecting capitalist, I could not grind down the oppressive heel upon the poor and needy by putting them in jail” (311).  It appears that Mr. Akerson has decided to become an investor once more, this time betting on the land that he had once scorned.

All that’s left to settle is what Darcy will do now that everyone but Mr. Akerson has left.  She doesn’t want to leave the beautiful estate and asks Mr. Akerson if she can continue keeping the house and looking after him.  Mr. Akerson proposes she do just that, as his wife.

One thing that surprises me about Good Times is its exclusion from Archibald Hanna’s A Mirror for the Nation: An Annotated Bibliography of American Social Fiction, 1901-1950.  He includes five other novels by Ethel Hueston.  And far be it from me to dictate another bibliographer’s parameters for inclusion in their work, but Good Times touches upon on communism, capitalism, communal living, religious camp meetings, the concept of free love (often as a joke considering the group’s constant bickering), and the revealed imposters who mimic the language of the KKK.  Good Times is not a radical book and is more of a gentle spoof, but it is very much of its era.

The social commentary in Good Times more or less serves as Hueston’s gentle and good-natured rebuttal of communism.  Several characters tell Darcy her plan for equal communal living won’t work.  From Ellena’s farewell letter, “Darling, it was lovely – all living together as we did – but Bud says it couldn’t work.  He says you can’t progress in groups but each and every one must go it alone” (294).  Then Bernadine on her goodbye phone call to Darcy, “Pop says it wouldn’t work, Darcy.  He says a group like that is all right for a bunch of youngsters… who haven’t got anything now and probably never will have, unless they inherit it.  But he says regular people have got to keep an eye on stocks and bonds” (301).  And then, the there’s the final joke of the book, in the closing lines where Darcy asks her soon to be husband if they can hire help so she can have someone to do the work without talking back.  She’s done with communal living.

Copies of Ethel Hueston’s works are available for purchase here.

Posted in 1930s, Bobbs Merrill, Ethel Hueston | 4 Comments

Overheard

Posted on January 17, 2024 by thegoodbadbook

Overheard by Ruby M. Ayres“Sacrificing love, she found it.”

It’s been several years since this blog covered a book by a British romance author.  My collection focus narrowed a handful of years ago from all 1920s and 1930s romances to those mostly written by American authors, preferably with American settings.  However, I do make the occasional exception!

Ruby Ayres is one of the better known romance authors of the 1920s, and certainly among the most prolific, with a writing career spanning decades.  She’s said to be the character inspiration for the P.G. Wodehouse character Rosie M. Banks, something I first heard from a Wodehouse collector and that is mentioned on her Wikipedia page.  Her entry in Twentieth Century Romance and Gothic Writers, edited by James Vinson with Ayres’ entry contributed by Rachel Anderson, includes a title list that is three and a half pages long!  Hodder and Stoughton published most of her British first editions.  George H. Doran Company published most but not all of her pre-1928 American editions before merging with Doubleday, at which point they were published by Doubleday, Doran & Company.  Her books were reprinted numerous times.  Although this blog features many Grosset & Dunlap first editions, any Grosset & Dunlap copies of Ayres’s books are reprints.

Happily, my copy of Overheard is the George H. Doran American first edition, published in 1926.  The dust jacket art is signed, but unfortunately I can’t decipher the artist signature, not even with a magnifying glass in good light.  If anyone has a lead on the artist, please let me know!  The illustration does resemble the protagonist, Diana Grantham, with her “short red curls” (8), and depicts the moment Diana overhears the conversation that ends her engagement.

The plot summary on the dust jacket begins, “How often the chance remark accidentally overheard changes the course of life.”  Only this was no “chance remark.”  The conversation Diana overhears in her own home is devastating and brutal.  Her fiancé, Rolf, is chatting with his best friend, Bansted. On her family, “[Diana’s father] just bought a couple of ancestors,” and “You can almost smell the varnish on ’em, they’re so new.”  Rolf makes it clear he’s marrying Diana for her father’s money to save his family’s estate, and that he thinks very little of her.  What’s more, there’s “someone else” in Rolf’s life!  Bansted sympathetically asks if there’s any possible way out of the upcoming marriage.  “None.  I’d give my soul if I could believe there was” (pages 12-15).

What an opening!  Wanting to know the immediate fallout of the overheard conversation propelled me through most of the exposition and the first quarter of the book.

Diana ends the engagement.  Rolf “had never liked her so well as when she had sent him away” (46).  Rolf’s faint disdain for Diana begins to dissipate and he feels ashamed of how he treated Diana as well as Jean, the woman he threw over in pursuit of the Grantham fortune.  His father passes away, the beloved family estate is purchased by Diana’s father, and his friend Bansted declares that Diana was quite the catch and he’d now like her for himself.  Rolf goes to Jean, who has been ill from the upset of being thrown over.  She happily accepts Rolf’s return and he has regrets as soon as he kisses her.  He’s thoroughly miserable.

Ayres introduces another character into the mix with Eleanor Colman, married for miserable fifteen years to a spendthrift husband who she had chosen over Bansted all those years ago.  Eleanor is a friend of Diana’s and Bansted employs her to keep Diana close and help him in his pursuit.  All of them plus Diana’s father spend time in a country home near Jean, whom Diana has sought.

The plot beings to resemble a house of cards:

  • Diana fabricates a wealthy family member to leave Jean a small fortune.  Once Jean has the money, she’ll be able to recover while marrying Rolf, even though Diana is heartbroken over this.
  • Rolf now reciprocates feelings towards Diana, but will marry Jean to keep his word.  Everyone agrees that Jean will die if her heart is broken again.
  • Diana accepts an engagement to Bansted, despite her indifference towards him.
  • Eleanor Colman’s husband leaves her, and she briefly stands a chance once more with Bansted.

The occasionally shrewd Eleanor decides it’s time to topple the first card.  She tells Jean that Rolf loves Diana, is marrying Jean out of obligation, and that Diana orchestrated Jean’s newfound wealth.  Eleanor instantly regrets having done this, but it is too late.  Jean collapses and dies.

Diana breaks off the engagement to Bansted.  With Eleanor and Bansted now both free, Bansted… leaves the country, for good.  Ayres tries to have it both ways: simultaneously punishing Eleanor for her various misdeeds, but still giving her a happy ending.  Eleanor is without her husband or Bansted and falls ill with remorse over Jean.  Diana’s father pays a visit and proposes marriage.  It’s strongly hinted that she will agree in the near future.

One of the running themes in the novel is said by Eleanor, “the time one wants a thing most is when one has lost it” (202).  It recurs among several character arcs but none as much as Rolf’s.  After Jean’s passing, he rejects Diana once more.  At this point, Diana perhaps senses Rolf’s fickleness, for as soon as he rejects her, she happily tells Eleanor that he will change his mind shortly.  And he does.  They hurry up and get married, for better or for worse, before anyone can change their minds again.

While I was drawn into Overheard’s exposition, I felt it did lag in the second half.  However, just when the book borders on becoming tedious and overlong, Ayres wraps it up.  I will now follow that example.

Copies of Ruby Ayres’s works are available for purchase here.

Posted in 1920s, Doubleday, Doran, and Company, Ruby Ayres | 2 Comments

The House of Yesterday

Posted on April 16, 2023 by thegoodbadbook

The House of Yesterday by Peggy GaddisLet’s get it out of the way that I think this book is quite the find.  Holy guacamole, a 1929 Peggy Gaddis in dust jacket?!  How did I manage that? (Answer: an Abebooks notification paired with swift, decisive action.)  I’ll admit that I did a little happy dance when The House of Yesterday joined my collection.

Now that I’ve established that this book is very exciting, the reason I think it’s special is because it is a very early work by the author, Peggy Gaddis.  Also known as Erolie Pearl Gaddis, Peggy Dern, and a variety of additional pen names, Gaddis was an incredibly prolific romance writer.  The majority of her work falls outside of my collecting scope timeframe, and it’s her midcentury novels that she’s best known for, including many nurse romances.  Rather than attempting to write a rough biography from scratch while this blog is hopelessly behind in book reviews, I’ll recommend readers check out this catalog listing from Between the Covers Rare Books, this great blog post, and the Wikipedia article about her.

Gaddis first started writing for pulp magazines like Breezy Stories, Snappy Stories, Cupid’s Diary, Love Romances, etc.  The FictionMags Index has a fairly extensive list of her magazine writing.  Her first couple of novels that appeared as hardcover books are from previous pulp publications.  Her first book published by Chelsea House was The Key to Paradise, which appeared in Love Romances beginning in February 1929.  Her second was The House of Yesterday.  The House of Yesterday doesn’t appear in the FictionMags Index chronological listing, but my best guess is that this story first appeared serially as Someone to Love, which appeared in Cupid’s Diary beginning in October 1929.  “Someone to love” is a phrase and theme that is repeated throughout the story and the year matches up.  If a reader of this blog happens to have a copy of a late 1929 Cupid’s Diary and can confirm that “Someone to Love” is the story of Linda Farnham and the plot matches, please let me know!  Thank you!  Edit:  Confirmed!  Thank you, Sheila!

The basic premise of The House of Yesterday is that young Linda Farnham is returning to the United States to claim her family’s estate of millions after growing up in a South American convent, but arrives in New York to find that her cousin has stolen the estate and declared Linda an imposter.  The novel follows Linda’s journey to New York, and how she recovers her identity against her plotting cousin.

Like other romances in the hardcover Chelsea House line, The House of Yesterday is a blend of outlandish plot elements succinctly packed into about 250 pages.  How Linda Farnham finds herself declared an imposter and stripped of her estate is an example of the wacky plot.  Linda is traveling with a chaperone, Mrs. Phillips, via ship from Buenos Aires but the ship sinks.  She’s separated from the chaperone, her lifeboat overturns, she finds a piece of floating wreckage to cling to, and swims away from the wreck to an island, where she is promptly rescued by a handsome aviator.

The handsome aviator who rescues Linda is of course the hero of the story, known for most of the book only as “Allan.”  He immediately agrees to rescue Linda, rather than leave her on an uninhabited island, but sounds reluctant about the whole thing.  Allan tells Linda that she must lie about how she was rescued and never mention him.  He takes her to a mysterious but beautiful house, The House of Yesterday.  While staying there, Linda is told not to leave her room and wakes in the night to hear what sounds like a woman screaming.  Allan then appears with a scratch across his cheek that appears to have been made by a woman’s finger nail.  While it’s framed quasi-mysteriously, the obvious guess here is the correct one.  The only mystery is who the woman is.

Upon arriving in New York City, Linda checks into the Mohawk Hotel and the next morning goes to see the family lawyer, Mr. Suddorth.  He informs her that Linda Farnham has been declared deceased and she must be an imposter, but lets her know where to find her next of kin, her first cousin Isabel Courtney.  Back on the ship, Linda dreamed of meeting her beautiful cousin Isabel and had built her up as something wonderful in her imagination, and had planned to share the Farnham estate with her.  However, Linda finds her cousin and that ideal is shattered.  Isabel Courtney has inherited the Farnham estate, and also declares Linda an imposter.  Isabel produces Linda’s chaperone from the ship, Mrs. Phillips, who shiftily testifies that Linda is an imposter.  Linda is turned away from her cousin without a dime or a claim to her identity or estate.

With no subtlety, The House of Yesterday makes it clear that this is an intentional scam and not a case of mistaken identity.  When the lawyer Mr. Suddorth asks Linda if she has legal papers and she declares they sank with the ship, “an expression that looked like one of acute relief spred swiftly over Mr. Suddorth’s well-barbered features” (56).  As soon as she leaves his office, Suddorth calls Isabel, “Isabel?  She’s – here!” (57).  When Mrs. Phillips declares she’s never seen Linda before, “there was an emotion of something like shame in her eyes” (64).  While leaving Isabel’s, Linda overhears Mrs. Phillips appealing to Isabel that what they’re doing is too cruel, and Isabel scolding her.  Even convent-raised unworldly Linda pieces together that Mrs. Phillips has been bribed.

Linda’s fortunes begin to turn around when a newspaper reporter, Ned Lane, is waiting for her back at the hotel.  He’s there to get an interview about the shipwreck and instead hears the story of an heiress unable to claim her estate.  Ned Lane helps Linda get on her feet in the strange new city.  He finds her more affordable housing than the hotel, and pays her for her permission to run her story as a serial in the newspaper.  The serial attracts attention, and a shop hires Linda for her minor celebrity.

The newspaper serial begins to make life difficult for cousin Isabel Courtney, now engaged to the corrupt lawyer Suddorth.  The combination of the running newspaper serial with Linda’s publicly known presence in the shop causes an embarrassment and spectacle for Isabel.  She’s trying to live up it up in society with the Farnham estate, and people knowing Linda’s claim is a wrinkle in her plans.  She offers Linda an allowance if Linda will agree to leave the shop and retract her statements to the paper.  Linda refuses.

“Allan” returns, and also promises to help Linda regain her identity and estate.  He asks that she trust him, and provides little additional information.  Linda is crushed to find him out on the town with Isabel.  She suspects the worst, and Allan later repeats that Linda is to trust him, but that he won’t answer any of her questions.  Isabel reappears to threaten Linda, telling her to stay away from “Peter Martin.”  Linda is then promptly kidnapped.

Allan’s efforts to exacerbate the cracks in the facade of Isabel and Suddorth work, driving a wedge between them.  Upon hearing Linda has disappeared, Isabel confesses to Allan that Suddorth could produce Linda, the true heir of the Farnham estate, prove Linda’s identity, and send Isabel to jail.  Ned Lane has teamed up with Allan to hear this confession, and Suddorth then appears and in a fit of anger, also incriminates himself.  With Allan hearing the confession and Ned Lane as a witness, they have what they need to stop Isabel and Suddorth.

Meanwhile, Linda wakes up from being kidnapped to find herself at one of Allan’s properties.  He had arranged her kidnapping.  The same maid from the House of Yesterday sees to her, but doesn’t tell her anything.  Without any knowledge of what has happened or what Allan has planned, Linda runs away but becomes trapped and lost in the woods.  She’s rescued, of course.

The final act of the story sees Linda forgiving Isabel, Suddorth, and Mrs. Phillips.  All three are produced and made to sign a confession, with cops ready to take them away, when Linda asks for them to be forgiven and released.  Not only that, but she insists on giving Isabel Courtney half of the Farnham estate, as she had originally planned.  “Back in the convent, the sisters taught us all a little prayer – and in it, there is a line that says, ‘Forgive us as we forgive!'” (233).

A non-Suddorth lawyer advises Linda to prosecute the trio, but she won’t hear of it.  “Perhaps they tried to harm me – but in reality, they helped me!  They helped me to find – some one to love” (234).  It was established only twenty pages prior that Suddorth had hired hitmen to kill her.  But no, Linda is just so happy to have Allan’s love and Ned Lane’s friendship that she won’t prosecute, and insists on giving her cousin half the estate.  This is a bit much even for the author.  With Isabel holding half the Farnham estate, the now disbarred Suddorth plans to force Isabel to go through with marrying him and “had Linda been a little more cynical, she might have reflected that she could have planned no more severe punishment for these two than they would undoubtably find in their marriage to each other” (237).

Allan reveals that his full name is Peter Martin Allan (three first names!) and that the woman at the House of Yesterday was his sister, who fell ill and has since passed.  He and Linda will be happily married at once, and return to the House of Yesterday to make it “a House of Today – filled with the happiness of love fulfilled” (242).

As a whole The House of Yesterday is a fairly middle of the road read for this blog.  It’s neither great nor terrible.  The characters are a little silly and one-note, but the plot had a clear beginning, middle, and end.  Since this is my first Gaddis read, it’s impossible for me to compare it to her other books.  But I’m glad I read it, and would definitely be excited to find more pre-1940s Gaddis novels in the future.

Copies of Peggy Gaddis’s works are available for purchase here and here.

Posted in 1920s, Chelsea House, Peggy Gaddis | 3 Comments

Diane’s Adventure

Posted on January 30, 2023 by thegoodbadbook

Diane's Adventure by Ann SumnerYikes, this blog is multiple book reviews behind again! Let’s dig into a book I read… more than ten months ago.  Here is the story of Diane Du Bois, a woman who ran away from home to Hollywood and achieved instant fame, success, and of course, romance.

Diane’s Adventure by Ann Sumner was published by A.L. Burt in 1929, one of the few A.L. Burt first editions of the era.  Like many Grosset & Dunlap first editions, this A.L. Burt first edition appeared in newspapers nationwide.  I found Diane’s Adventure in the Newspaper Archive database with a run in the Cincinnati Times Star, beginning in 1928.

Before diving into Diane’s story (adventure), it’s worth taking a look at Ann Sumner.  Like several of the authors reviewed on this blog, Sumner’s romance writing career was only one chapter in her professional life.  It’s fitting that the bulk of Diane’s Adventure takes place around Hollywood, as Southern California was her home.  However, it was UCLA specifically that was Sumner’s home, in every sense of the word.  Sumner was among the first alumnae to graduate in 1926, and returned to work at the university in 1932.  Her niece was quoted as saying, “She was never married, so (UCLA) has been her child,” and when Sumner retired, she lived across the street from campus and would attend basketball games, even after turning 100!  Two fabulous articles really capture Sumner’s story and her love for UCLA, here and here.  UCLA’s library holds Sumner’s papers in their archive, the finding aid to which can be found here.

Relevant to collecting Sumner’s romance work is that, depending on which source I consult, Sumner is said to have written either six or eight romance novels.  By my count, I know of seven:  Diane’s Adventure, The Dream Kiss, The Glamorous Call, The Glittering Illusion, The Love Talent, Luxury Sweetheart, and The Silver Moth.  Could there be an eighth romance novel that was published in newspapers or a magazine but didn’t make the leap to an A.L. Burt edition?  Possibly!  I’ve certainly seen that with other authors.  However, there are definitely more than six titles in that list.  The other odd thing about those sources is that I have not seen the pseudonym they mention, “Marya Moore” used in the newspaper runs that I’ve found through the Newspaper Archive database.  Maybe it was used somewhere, but not in the examples I’ve found!

What’s interesting and relevant to Diane’s Adventure – at least in my opinion – is Sumner’s young age when writing this novel, as well as her opinion on it.  Sumner was born in 1904 (and lived until 2008!), so she was in her mid-twenties when she wrote most of her novels, and around twenty-four when she wrote Diane’s Adventure (which was syndicated in 1928).  Taken from the UCLA Alumni interview linked earlier, Sumner is quoted as saying, “[But at UCLA,] I couldn’t write the same dopey love stories that I wrote at the paper. I [got] used to writing academic radio speeches for Dr. Moore, and I couldn’t write cheap love stories that paid so well…I couldn’t do it after I got on campus. It was too academic … (the) people I met and everything else.”

That brings us to Diane’s Adventure.  Why?  Because normally I’d be saddened by an author referring to her own work as “dopey” but well, Diane’s Adventure is a little silly.  It reads to me a little like a self-insert Hollywood daydream.  Maybe Sumner’s other six (seven?) books are better.  However, in reading that interview, I do worry that this author was shamed out of her novel-writing career by academic snobbery some ninety years ago.

In any event, Diane’s Adventure opens with Diane’s arrival in Los Angeles.  In the scene depicted on the dust jacket, Diane witnesses her millionaire father with his arms around a “seductive little widow, who had supplied morsels of gossip for Brentmoore bridge parties for the last year” (5), leading her to run away later that evening.  In the first bit of fantasy within the plot, Diane has plenty of what could be referred to as “screw you money,” and finances are no concern.

The next bits of fantasy are that within hours of arriving, Diane hears about and attends a famous Wampas Ball, instantly attracting several potential suitors.  Unfortunately, one of the suitors is the silent era’s version of Harvey Weinstein, an influential producer named Gregory Garrett.  Garrett takes Diane to an afterparty and gets her alone at the end of the evening.  Fortunately, Hollywood leading man Jerry Lane just so happens to see this and, instantly smitten with Diane, hides in the curtains and executes an elaborate escape plot.  Naturally, this turnkeys into the leading man securing Diane an audition at Intra-National studios.  Do I even need to spell out the results?  A major film studio takes a gamble on the unknown Diane, casting her opposite Jerry Lane in an upcoming feature film.  This makes total sense.

Diane befriends a somewhat mysterious woman whose friendship with Jerry had originally made her jealous, Aurolyn Nair.  Aurolyn invites Diane to live with her, which Diane accepts and the two women spend more time together.  It’s revealed to the reader that Aurolyn is helping Gregory Garrett get closer to Diane, “I’ll always be willing to help you.  My debt to you is still unpaid” (101).  Meanwhile, Diane and Jerry become engaged, which Aurolyn promptly reports to Garrett.

Back on the east coast, Diane’s father breaks off his engagement with the notorious widow and begins to wonder where Diane went, now months ago.  He hires a private detective agency, but still hears first from a friend that they saw a film with “a girl whom I can almost swear is your daughter” (107).  Mr. Du Bois gives the agency carte blanche to do as they see fit to keep Diane safe until he can arrive in California, and that’s when things go sideways.

Aurolyn leaves Diane unaccompanied at their residence, and Gregory Garrett comes calling.  He makes his move, and is rejected.  Suddenly, Diane notices something, goes toward it, and a shot rings out.  When Gregory Garrett is found, there is no sign of Diane anywhere.

Diane awakes from a drugged sleep to find she has been kidnapped by the private detective agency, and that she was removed from the scene moments before Garrett’s murder.  The detective agency was unaware of the murder, or that their keeping Diane was implicating her.  Jerry rushes to find her, and brings her back to clear her name.  Shortly after that, Aurolyn reveals she has a step-sister who was married to Garrett, separated but refusing to divorce.  “She couldn’t have Greg herself – and she was going to be darn sure no other woman got him” (165).  It’s no surprise when it’s later confirmed that the step-sister was the murderer.

Diane’s father arrives just in time to help piece together the financial fallout caused by Garrett’s demise.  Instead of taking Diane back East, they stay in Hollywood and Diane quits acting.  A new film goes into production, and now Aurolyn Nair stars opposite Jerry Lane.  Diane is left with nothing to do, and attracts the attention of a “Lounge Lizard.”  Jerry and Diane’s mutual jealousy temporarily breaks their engagement, but of course they’re reunited at the end, by Aurolyn herself.  It’s a convoluted ending that involves a road trip, a dramatic rescue of a child, and a head injury.

Even in recounting Diane’s Adventure, the story plods along a bit.  It’s definitely not the worst book covered by the blog, and really isn’t even in the bottom third, but it was unremarkable and definitely languished on the read-but-needs-to-be-reviewed pile for far too long.  For me, the best part of this book is the memory of picking up my copy during my bachelorette weekend the other year.  Because, yes, of course we stopped at a bookstore on the way home.

On to the next adventure!

Discover other romances published in 1929 available for purchase here.

Posted in 1920s, A.L. Burt, Ann Sumner | 3 Comments

Interrupted Honeymoon

Posted on August 1, 2022 by thegoodbadbook

Dust jacket art by H. Weston TaylorToo often, it feels like few collectible copies of the books I collect are newly arriving on the book market.  In early 2022, right when I felt like I was in a book collecting slump, Yesterday’s Gallery and Babylon Revisited Rare Books released a new catalog that can only be described as devastatingly awesome.  I immediately lost all chill.

I ended up buying the book that was the catalog’s featured cover image even before the catalog had its complete debut.  One look at the dust jacket and I knew I had to have it.  That book was Interrupted Honeymoon by Pauline Benedict Fischer.  Also, I’d say “sorry” to anyone who may have wanted any of the eight titles I snapped up from that catalog, but I’m not sorry at all!

Interrupted Honeymoon by Pauline Benedict Fischer was published by the Penn Publishing Company in 1935.  Like all of my Penn editions, this copy is complete with its original perforated bookmark attached to the dust jacket’s front flap.  This bookmark lists Temple Bailey novels.  The dust jacket front flap also notes that this story has not been published serially.  The amazing cover art that drew me to this title is by H. Weston Taylor.  It depicts a scene from the book (page 53), and features the most intense glare in my entire collection.

For anyone wishing to read along, HathiTrust has Interrupted Honeymoon scanned and available here.  Their copy originates from a place I’m familiar with – the Bentley Historical Library at University of Michigan.  Their scan includes the dust jacket, front flap with bookmark, and a written note from the author.  It also includes a digitization hiccup of repeating the first dozen or so pages, which can be a little confusing.

Since the Bentley has holdings of Fischer’s work, I became curious and did a deeper dive, consulting a combination of the Bentley’s digitized holdings of The Michigan Daily, some freely available Google Books, Ancestry Library Edition, and the Newspaper Archive database.

Pauline Benedict Fischer (1892-1982) née Margaret Pauline Benedict was born in Ionia, Michigan.  She attended the University of Michigan, where she edited the literary magazine the Inlander.  While at U of M, she married her husband, Alfred Fischer, who at the time worked at the Detroit Free Press.  The Fischers moved to New Jersey in 1928.  Fischer wrote mostly one-act plays and poetry, and Interrupted Honeymoon was her first novel.

An interview from the Morning Avalanche newspaper in Lubbock, Texas, dated January 22, 1946, relays the story of how the author got her inspiration.  Fischer, “stopped by a lending library shelf in a drugstore several years ago while her husband went on to the cigar stand.  Glancing through the titles she was suddenly struck with the thought, ‘Why I can write books as good as or better than these!'”  The same article mentions that her husband “is his wife’s severe critic and dearest friend” in editing and critiquing her work.

Interrupted Honeymoon is a great fit for a summer read.  It is light fiction with low stakes.  Fischer is quoted in The Michigan Alumnus, Volume 42 as saying it “does not pretend to solve any problems at all.”  Interrupted Honeymoon is intended as humorous, although I’m a bit of a tough sell on finding books funny.  The story of Interrupted Honeymoon was a bit one note, although some of the gags were definitely effective.  Also, I found that some of the situational comedy could be a little grating at times, but again, that could just be my taste.  Warning: spoilers ahead!

The premise of Interrupted Honeymoon is that Nancy and Willetts Lace are newlyweds embarking on their honeymoon.  They desire tranquility and solitude, and Willetts rents an isolated cottage named “Lonely Cove.”  Of course, “Lonely Cove” is anything but lonely, and their honeymoon turns into a series of various misadventures.  Interrupted Honeymoon also reads like an Airbnb horror story, except that Airbnb was still about seventy-five years in the future.

Why did Willetts, sometimes affectionately called Billetts by Nancy, rent Lonely Cove from a local in a remote town?  Willetts doesn’t want his first trip to Europe to be on his honeymoon, and Nancy doesn’t like the idea of honeymooning in Niagara Falls since “everybody goes there for honeymoons” (14).  Nancy and Willetts decide that their honeymoon must not be “The Usual Thing” (15).

One of the recurring gags is that the cottage’s housekeeper, Phoebe, the daughter of the man Willetts rented the cottage from, is very nosy and troublesome.  She mistakenly believes the newlyweds aren’t properly married, and has her own love triangle as backstory.  Another recurring element is that an unusual man living in the woods keeps breaking into the place and locking the newlyweds out.  And of course, the big punchline of the honeymoon is that Nancy and Willetts never actually get to spend an uninterrupted night together in their bedroom at Lonely Cove.

Night 1:  A massive storm knocks a tree onto the bedroom roof.  Falling plaster seals Nancy and Willetts off from the bedroom, and then Willetts gets locked in the basement.  Nancy sleeps on the davenport, Willetts on the basement floor.

Night 2:  During the second day, men from the town come to repair the roof.  One of them falls off the roof and can’t be moved from his impromptu sickbed, the bedroom at Lonely Cove.  Nancy and Willetts spend a tense evening with the recovering man and the town doctor.  Willetts sleeps on the davenport, and Nancy in an army cot in a room off the kitchen.

Night 3:  Nancy and Willetts rent a boat and explore twin caves.  Willetts explores the second cave as Nancy rests at the first.  He discovers the tide has quickly risen, and the couple can’t reach the boat or each other.  They wait most of the night for the tide to lower, and eventually return back to Lonely Cove to find themselves mysteriously locked out.  They sleep in their car.

Night 4:  Willetts’ PARENTS show up!  Perhaps Europe would have been enough distance to discourage these visitors, but Lonely Cove wasn’t!  Willetts’ mother insisted on dropping by, and then stays late enough to need to spend the night.  Willetts’ father apologizes.  The Lace parents sleep in the bedroom.  Once again, Willetts sleeps on the davenport, and Nancy sleeps in the army cot off the kitchen.

Night 5:  Police search for a mentally ill patient who escaped from an asylum and is thought to be near Lonely Cove.  Phoebe leads the police to Willetts Lace and has him taken to jail.  The police won’t listen to Willetts and Nancy that they have the wrong man.  Nancy follows the police to jail, and insists on spending the night near Willetts.  In jail.

The next day, the doctor from the asylum declares Willetts is indeed not his patient.  Instead, the strange man living in the woods, who had occasionally broken into Lonely Cove and locked the newlyweds out, appears and surrenders to the asylum staff.  Willetts and Nancy return to Lonely Cove and summarily fire Phoebe.  She tries to tell them something, but they refuse to hear it…

Before Night 6:  The rightful owners of Lonely Cove arrive.  Phoebe and her father had no right to rent the place out.  They were the housekeepers, and thought they could get away with the scheme while the owners were traveling.  Understandably, the owners are surprised and upset to find random vacationers living in their house.  Nancy and Willetts take the first train out of town, as far as it will go.  The only available tickets are not together.

Before their train out of town arrives, Nancy and Willetts run into a supporting character, Amos.  Amos had been one of Phoebe’s love interests, and he had been losing that battle for a significant part of the novel.  Finding Phoebe chastened by her wrongful accusation of Willetts and subsequent shame at being fired from Lonely Cove, Amos swoops in to be her hero and marry her right away.  The only problem is… they can’t find any witnesses.  Amos talks Nancy and Willetts into being those witnesses.  Before the Laces leave, Nancy asks where Phoebe and Amos will honeymoon.  Phoebe answers Niagara Falls.  Amos adds, “it’s what new married folks us’uly does” (298).

The story closes with Nancy and Willetts in “the busiest hotel on the busiest street of the busiest city in the world” (302).  Nancy and Willetts congratulate themselves on finding the perfect hiding spot where they will finally be left in peaceful solitude.  Maybe they will, maybe they won’t, but I’m just saying that those declarations in Interrupted Honeymoon are inevitably followed by yet another interruption.  Either way, Nancy and Willetts reflect that their honeymoon wasn’t the “Usual Thing.”

Copies of Pauline Benedict Fischer’s works are available for purchase here.

Posted in 1930s, H. Weston Taylor, Pauline Benedict Fischer, Penn Publishing Company | Leave a comment

The Trail of Conflict

Posted on July 2, 2022 by thegoodbadbook

Written by Emilie Loring, cover art by W.V. ChambersHappy 100th Birthday to The Trail of Conflict by Emilie Loring!

Don’t be deceived by the somewhat drab cover art (by W.V. Chambers), this book is a massively exciting gem in my collection!  Simply stated, Emilie Loring is one of the most famous romance novelists within the era I collect, and this is the first edition of her first full-length novel published under her real name.  Not only is my copy the original Penn Publishing Company edition, but it’s a complete post-1921 Penn edition, meaning its original perforated bookmark is still attached to the dust jacket’s front flap.

How do I begin to explain the everlasting appeal of Emilie Loring, except to refer readers to other bibliographic resources?  Loring’s entry in Twentieth Century Romance and Gothic Writers (edited by James Vinson and published by Gale Research Company in 1982) is written by Margaret Jensen and can be found on pages 443-445.  “Emilie Loring is an American writer of patriotic, moralistic romances that comment upon some of the major socio-political events occurring in the United States during the period in which they were published.  Loring’s version of the romance formula has had an enduring appeal, for, although her books were written in the first half of the century, their multiple printings up to the present day attest to their continued popularity” (444).  The abundance of reprintings paired with the longevity of Loring’s writing career, including her ghostwritten novels, contribute to more name recognition than most of the authors reviewed on this blog.  Since The Trail of Conflict is in the public domain, it is freely available to readers today through digital repositories such as HathiTrust.

Another wonderful resource on Emilie Loring is Patti Bender’s website.  It really is a must-visit website for any Loring fan.  Not to be missed is her post on The Trail of Conflict, which includes the story of its publication history, from its origins in Munsey’s Magazine to Penn Publishing.

The final bibliographic citation that I would be remiss to omit is Geoffrey Smith’s American Fiction, 1901-1925.  The Trail of Conflict’s entry is L-513.  Now, on to the story!

Stephen Courtlandt and Jerry (short for Geraldine) Glamorgan find themselves in an old-fashioned arranged marriage, plotted over the years by Jerry’s father and hastily foisted upon the Courtlandt family by means of financial blackmail.  The Courtlandt family has a longstanding ancestral line, and the Glamorgan family has recent wealth accumulated over the past few decades.  Glamorgan buys up the Courtlandt estate and says he’ll kick out the elder Courtlandt unless the socially advantageous marriage takes place.  Out of devotion for their fathers, Steve and Jerry agree, but have very little reason to like the arrangement.  Their marriage starts out frosty and full of resentment.

The Trail of Tears doesn’t begin as a Western, but morphs into one thanks to a meddling wealthy Uncle Nicholas Fairfax.  This brings up the question of why Steve’s Uncle Nick didn’t bail out the Courtlandt estate in the first place, but the convoluted answer is that he refused the money to the elder Courtlandt and didn’t know of the marriage arrangement until it was too late.  Steve and Jerry continue to be pawns of their meddling elders, as they shift from living under Jerry’s fathers terms to living under the terms of Uncle Nick’s will after he passes, which states that the newlyweds must live at and manage his ranch, the Double O, in Wyoming.  Also, Jerry must lose all claim to the allowance provided by her father.

Loring stacks the tropes on top of each other: first the arranged marriage (strangers to enemies to friends to love storyline!), then the complicated inheritance plot, then the Western-styled story including a potential heist and outlaws.  The themes of The Trail of Conflict match Jensen’s write up of Loring fairly well.  To paraphrase, Loring’s protagonists have unwavering loyalty to their family, to marriage as an institution, and finally to their country.  Also, it’s clear throughout the book that because Steve and Jerry have good morals, they will triumph in the end.

Steve and Jerry’s relationship evolves throughout the book, as they slowly get to know each other while living at the Double O ranch.  Jerry’s little sister, Peggy, visits the ranch, and creates a stark contrast to this with her rapid and passionate relationship with Tommy Benson, Steve’s right-hand man.

For being in remote Wyoming, there are a lot of “small world” coincidences.  There aren’t many neighbors around, but the owner of the nearest ranch, named X Y Z ranch, just so happens to have been formerly engaged to Jerry.  Visiting the neighboring ranch is Felice Denbigh, who contributed to the strain in Steve and Jerry’s marriage back east and was a former interest of Steve’s before he went off to serve in World War I.  Speaking of WWI, several men who served alongside Steve appear in the novel, also happening to turn up in Wyoming.

The book builds up to an attempted train robbery from a disgruntled former ranch hand from the Double O named Ranlett.  Steve fired Ranlett, accusing him of employing immigrants who hadn’t applied for legal status, and who in turn spoke against the government.  Steve’s rant about Ranlett’s sacking (101-103) also matches Jensen’s descriptions of Loring’s themes.  Anyway, Ranlett amasses a band of outlaws to rob a train that is carrying currency from the government.  Steve and the patriots at Double O ranch stop the plot, helped by various veterans from Steve’s army days, including some who were mixed up with Ranlett but had a change of heart.

After foiling the train robbery, Steve and Jerry declare their love for each other.  Felice Denbigh’s ex-husband got mixed up in the plot but helped provide information to foil the plot before passing away, and Felice makes one final Hail Mary pass at Steve that falls hopelessly short as he sends her packing.  Jerry’s little sister writes home, “When I look up and see Steve’s eyes on Jerry my heart stampedes.  I feel as though I had made the unpardonable break of opening a closed door without knocking.  Jerry behaves a little better.  She keeps her eyes to heel but her voice – ” (319).

The Trail of Conflict ends the same as it began, with the elder Mr. Courtlandt and Glamorgan.  Only unlike their first meeting, this one is jovial and congratulatory.  They read Peggy’s letter and reflect on how Uncle Nicholas Fairfax’s meddling saved Steve and Jerry’s marriage.  The final sentence of the novel reads, “They stood shaking hands furiously, laughing boyishly, and patting one another’s shoulders as the lights flashed up on the river and night rang down the curtain of dusk.”

Babylon Revisited Rare BooksCopies of Emilie Loring’s works are available for purchase here.

Posted in 1920s, Emilie Loring, Penn Publishing Company | 2 Comments

Guilty Lips

Posted on June 14, 2022 by thegoodbadbook

Written by Laura Lou Brookman, Cover Art by Mach TeyThis post has been co-written by Jess and her friend, Doug.

When Doug asked about co-reading a book for this blog, my first question was “are you sure?”  The second question was whether he preferred a printed book or if a digital copy via HathiTrust would do.  Like me, Doug prefers printed books as we have plenty of screen time at work.  That limited our options to anything I had in duplicate.  I presented Doug with all two of his options.  He knows why he didn’t pick the other one.

That brings us to Guilty Lips by Laura Lou Brookman.  I have a bunch of Laura Lou Brookman books.  Back in 2011, I purchased a sizable lot of her books on eBay.  It was an instant collection boost very early in my collecting career.  However, one of the copies came with a facsimile dust jacket, a modern reproduction not original to the book.  It was described as such – no nasty surprises there – but it didn’t really fit with my collection.  I snapped up a “real” copy as soon as I could, but kept the other copy around, in part because I never get rid of anything (Doug can confirm).  Doug read the facsimile copy at the same time I read the collection copy, and we called each other every fifty pages to discuss the book.

Guilty Lips first appeared in newspaper syndication before making the leap to the Grosset & Dunlap edition in 1931.  The shocking pink dust jacket is by Mach Tey.  The protagonist of the story has blonde hair, so we’re not sure what the cover art is about.  In fact, we’re not even really sure what the title or cover blurb (“they loved each other! But their kisses were forbidden”) is about.  (We really tried to figure it out, too.)

As someone who’s brand new to this decade and practically this genre, Doug found this book both frustrating and intriguing.  Frustrating in the sense that the author did not appear to care about proper pacing or any semblance of character development, and saw nothing wrong with leaving stray plot points unaddressed; intriguing in the sense that this book provides a window into a very particular time in our country’s history–the start of the Great Depression–from a point of view that has historically been overlooked–housewives.  It comes with all the typical anachronisms that a more prolific reader of this genre (*cough* Jess *cough*) might not notice as much (e.g., “goodby”).  Overall, Doug disliked this book quite strongly.  But it didn’t have to be this way.

Guilty Lips had a strong start.  There was a puppy!  The meet-cute of protagonist Norma Kent and love interest Mark Travers happens when they conspire to save the critter from certain doom.  What follows is the poor sap trying to leverage his good samaritanism to score a date (classic male behavior of any era), while the noble woman declines his persistent advances.

Following the meet-cute, the author gives a sense of who Norma is as a person and what her life looks like.  She introduces Norma’s best friend, Christine Saunders aka Chris, who is also her roommate (and who, in a modern book, would be at least a potential love interest because wooo-boy do they ever have some chemistry).  Throughout the novel, we meet very few characters from Norma’s life.  It seems like Norma might even have been born like Athena, fully formed from the forehead of Zeus, because Norma has no backstory predating a few years before the start of the book.  No family of Norma’s is mentioned or referenced.  It’s not even like she’s been disowned or there’s been some tragic back story.  They just don’t exist.  Also, there are intermittent mentions of the fictional setting of a town named Marlboro, which we have strong reason to believe is loosely based on Cleveland.

The book then segued into a quest for Norma to find the puppy’s true owner.  Norma quickly places an ad in the local paper for the lost dog.  What she doesn’t realize, even though it makes total sense, is that Mark Travers would be looking for just such an ad in order to find a way to contact this damsel.  Mark again tries to score a date.  Strike two.  But we know from another spurred suitor, Bob Farrell, that Norma is not one for romance.

And then the book jumps the shark.  Norma decides, yes, she actually likes this man that she just met and spent the past fifty-plus pages rebuffing.  Mark’s dad, millionaire F.M. Travers, bursts into Norma’s and Chris’s apartment to tell Norma that he doesn’t approve of the relationship (understatement).  He threatens to disown his son, and his bullheaded son tells him where he can go instead.  Mark, true to his impulsive and quick tempered ways, turns to Norma with, “Won’t you marry me, tonight” (78)?  And then they’re married.  Just like that.  In the three Brookman novels this blog has covered so far, all three feature hasty marriages.

What follows is a very long honeymoon in some place called Blue Springs (query: https://www.nps.gov/hosp/index.htm).  The only problem is… they don’t have any money.  Mark sells his car to fund the trip.  Yes, the Blue Springs honeymoon takes up way too much of the book and is one of the pacing problems, but it serves to demonstrate that Mark doesn’t know how to be financially independent and cannot function without access to the Travers fortune.  He blows through money like it’s going out of style.  The honeymoon also illustrates that Mark has no problem with dumping Norma for long periods of time when it suits him.

Things go south for the newlyweds, and fast.  Mark gambles away their last $400 while becoming belligerently drunk.  There’s no money for the hotel bill, and Mark Travers takes a loan from a man who has some unknown history with Norma, which shakes her to her core for reasons that aren’t explained for way too long (he’s her former attorney), and the newlyweds leave Blue Springs in disgrace.

Back in Marlboro, Mark steadfastly refuses to allow his perfectly capable wife to resume working, while himself being utterly inept at securing employment.  Norma finds him a job that he loses within a week.  Eventually, Mark finds work at a department store, far beneath his station, but he holds it.  Then F.M. Travers comes to the rescue and promises to give Mark money if he goes to France on an errand.  This is–eegad!–all a ploy to get Mark out of the country to drive a wedge between the newlyweds, which succeeds.  Mark divorces Norma in a highly questionable French proceeding (lawyers may ask why the heck a French court decided it had jurisdiction to process the divorce of a tourist with no connection to France for an American marriage, without providing any sort of notice or due process to the wife), and thus ends their marriage without much fanfare… or does it??

Surprise! Norma is pregnant.  Abandoned by her now ex-husband, Norma has Mark’s baby without informing the Travers family.  Even though she has been grievously wounded by this whole ordeal, she names the baby Mark Travers, after his father.  There isn’t really any explanation to justify this decision.  She simply does it.

We meet a few other characters, most notably Norma’s boss, Stuart, who’s surprisingly a mensch.  Stuart doesn’t mind that Norma lied about being married or concealed her pregnancy, and he lets her come back to work after she has the baby, beginning with flexible work-from-home options.  So progressive for the 1930s!  And yet, it’s the fact that Norma is a working mom that is used to justify a spurious case of child neglect, clearly instigated by F.M. Travers upon learning through his channels that Norma is a mother.  Norma is devastated.  She contacts her only two friends in the narrative world, Bob and Chris, and enlists their help in reclaiming her baby.  

Then comes a public corruption trial that has more problems than can be addressed in this blog post, the reclamation of baby Mark Travers, and the reunion of Mark and Norma, who decide they will remarry and sail off to South America.  If that sentence sounds disjointed or like a lot all at once, that’s because it is.  All of that happened within forty pages.  Laura Lou Brookman clearly wants the protagonist and her roommate to have a happy ending, and this is the only one she can think of.  So Norma marries Mark (again), and Chris and Bob, who have had no chemistry in the preceding 340 pages, suddenly announce they are marrying, too.

Guilty Lips reads like a failed morality tale.  Obviously, there’s a warning in here about a woman rushing into a hasty marriage without getting to know her future husband, but the happy ending negates it.  A morality antiquated from our modern reading, but perhaps more common for the decade, could be about sticking with your husband, no matter what, even if he’s abusive.  It also seems to imply that you could improve your husband, and he will magically become the man you want him to be.  Or at least he will tell you that he’s that man in the closing pages of the novel, and you will believe it without evidence!

Why does Norma take back Mark Travers?  Bob Farrell wasn’t glamorous, but was a better catch.  Chris doesn’t fit a heteronormative plot, but was also a better catch.  (“‘[Bob’s] the best person I’ve ever known,’ Norma told herself.  ‘No, one of the best.  Bob isn’t any better than Chris.  They’re both wonderful.”  (329).)  We ship it.  And Mark Travers, frankly, he was a heap of garbage.  Bottom of the barrel, dude.

Copies of Laura Lou Brookman’s works are available for purchase here.

Posted in 1930s, Grosset and Dunlap, Laura Lou Brookman, Mach Tey | Leave a comment