Silver Echoes: A Gold Digger Novel by Rebecca Rosenberg; The Adventures of Baby Doe Tabor’s Wild Thrill Seeking Daughter

 Silver Echoes: A Gold Digger Novel by Rebecca Rosenberg; The Adventures of Baby Doe Tabor’s Wild Thrill Seeking Daughter 

By Julie Sara Porter 

Bookworm Reviews

Spoilers: When I read about Rose Mary Echo Silver Dollar Tabor (1889-1925) on Wikipedia and in the epilogue in Rebecca Rosenberg’s Historical Fiction novel, Gold Digger: The Remarkable Baby Doe Tabor, I knew that she would be an interesting person to read about. I was not wrong.

Of course that is to be expected. Rosenberg's Historical Fiction novels are about remarkable outstanding and highly interesting women and her latest, Silver Echoes: A Gold Digger Novel is no exception. Two novels, Champagne Widows and Madame Pommery, were about Barbe-Nicole Clicquot Ponsardin and Jeanne Alexandrine Louise Melin Pommery respectively entrepreneurs and vintners who made the French wine industry what it is today. Her previous book, Gold Digger was about Elizabeth McCourt “Baby Doe” Tabor and her rise from mine owner and worker to Denver socialite and her fall after Horace Tabor, her politician husband, died and the Panic of 1893 wiped out her family fortune.

This time Baby Doe’s younger daughter, Silver Dollar takes the lead and she is every bit her mother's daughter in her desire to stand out and her ability to draw controversy and scandal like a magnet. 

The novel covers about twenty years and alternates between Silver Dollar and Baby Doe’s points of view. Silver Dollar's perspective is set in the 1910’s-20’s as she embarks on an entertainment career, unpredictable romances with dangerous men, and potentially undiagnosed mental illness. Baby Doe's is set in 1932 after Silver Dollar’s death is reported. Baby Doe is trying to get her Matchless Mine running again while giving background information on a biopic about her and her late husband.

As with many Historical Fiction novels, we get not only the main story of the protagonist’s life but the impact that their lives had on those who outlived and learned from them. In this case, both mother and daughter are well written formidable presences with captivating stories that draw in the Readers.

If Baby Doe embodies the spirit of the Gilded Age with her self-made entrepreneurship, sudden glamorous affluence, and the ability to talk tough while dressing classy, then Silver Dollar embodies the Roaring 20’s with her effervescent joie de vivre, her constant mobility, and modern independent spirit.

Silver Dollar begins her journey as a bit player for a photoplay company to support herself and her mother after Horace dies, they are left destitute by the Economic Panic, and their older daughter and sister, Lily abandons them. While her work is for survival and she sends money to her mother, Silver Dollar is not unaware what it could mean for her so she creates lavish stunts like the Slide of Life, to be noticed and recognized. This is where she slides, rather than walks, across a high wire over a large lake.

This opening gives us a taste of the setting and Silver Dollar’s character. This is when movies were in their infancy, not every home had a radio so people found entertainment wherever they could. That often included people going to great extremes to get the audience’s attention. Remember this was the time when Harry Houdini wowed audiences with his escape attempts. When vaudeville houses dotted even small towns so people could pay a few cents to see singers, dancers, jugglers, acrobats, comedians, animal trainers. Many of the vaudevillians would move on to long and successful careers on film, radio, and television. It's the right time for someone bold, daring, and thirsting for adventure and recognition like Silver Dollar.

While Slide of Life gives her the much needed praise and notoriety, it doesn't last. An envious colleague frames her for theft and she is sexually assaulted by a long time family friend so she goes on the run. This happens a lot in the book. She finds some semblance of fame, excitement, and wealth. A place and position that can give her prominence and stability. Then, something happens that causes her to end that and leave for her next adventure.

She becomes an actress, dancer, singer, animal tamer among others and meets an array of film stars, mobsters, and other celebrities of the early 20th century. It's a dizzying colorful ride, but it can't be accused of being boring.

Eventually Silver Dollar finds fame as a tiger tamer. Her interactions with the tigers consist of patience, trust, strength, courage, and determination. It makes sense that someone who is wild and reckless would tame animals as wild and reckless as she is. She sees kindred spirits in her tigers and they see a human that loves and understands them while being a dominant and authority figure. 

There is a darker edge to this novel that is found within Silver Dollar herself. While she gives off a fearless personality, inwardly she is insecure, uncertain, and is always questioning herself. She has moments of doubt, reason, and conscience that put a stop to more dangerous and violent actions. However there is a darker side to her personality, literally.

In the Afterward, Rosenberg stated that there is some evidence, albeit circumstantial and never outright acknowledged, that Silver Dollar had Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID). Rosenberg took that theory to its fullest fruition by giving Silver Dollar an alter, Echo LaVode, which was a name that the real Silver Dollar sometimes used during her professional career.

Echo is the darker aspect of Silver Dollar’s extroverted nature. She has no fail safes, reservations, or blockers that impair her actions. She acts without thinking and when she is in charge she puts herself and Silver into dangerous situations like drinking, taking drugs, visiting speakeasies, and flirting with dangerous men who are violent and unpredictable. Since Echo parties at night and Silver Dollar works during the day, Silver Dollar herself gets little sleep. Therefore, her body goes through physical changes that weaken her host and leaves the alter to be in control more times than she should. This control leaves Silver Dollar helpless and vulnerable, a victim of Echo’s unpredictable tendencies.

However, Echo occasionally shows a softer side. She emerges when Silver Dollar needs physical protection. She is horrified when she witnesses African-Americans being lynched by KKK members suggesting that there are actions that are abhorrent even to her. She is also clever enough that if Silver Dollar can't think of an escape plan, she can. Even though Echo is an alternate personality, she is every bit as multifaceted as her host.

Silver Dollar’s story is one of instability, going from place to place, and living fast and hard. It's about using life to take as much as you can. By contrast, Baby Doe's story is about being sedentary, restoring home and professions to their former glory, and becoming the holder of wonderful and painful memories. 

In 1932, Baby Doe is trying her damnedest to honor Horace's final wish to hold onto the Matchless Mine and living in denial that her daughter has died (She believes that Silver Dollar was sent to a convent). She tells her memories of her Leadville home and family to filmmaker, Carl Erickson who was involved with Silver Dollar and tried to be a steady solid presence in her life.

As with her portrayal in Gold Digger, Baby Doe hovers between a tough talking frontierswoman and a society matron. She is ready with a shotgun if she feels threatened and when Carl wants to understand her, she takes him to the Matchless Mine. She is ready with a sharp comment and matter of fact nature so Carl knows who's really in charge and he does not dream of making the script too sentimental or frilly. Even in old age and after she has lost nearly everything and everyone important to her, she still is a force to be reckoned with.

The movie's Denver premiere gives Baby Doe some of the glamor that she once had. Gone is the tough gal with a dilapidated mine and a shotgun and instead she is once again a lady in an elegant gown and a central figure in Denver’s social set. Her good carefree days are back at least briefly.

The ending is a bit of wish fulfillment that veers towards speculation and alternate universes. It gives a finality to the mother and daughter's stories and reminds us that these were two strong fascinating women with a bond that was never broken but changed. Mother and daughter learned from and loved each other.

Priceless Passion by Ary Chest; Historical Gay Romance Covers Love, Class Struggles, and Self-identity

 

Priceless Passion by Ary Chest; Historical Gay Romance Covers Love, Class Struggles, and Self-identity 

By Julie Sara Porter 

Bookworm Reviews 

This review is also on Reedsy Discovery 

Spoilers: When writing a Historical Fiction novel featuring a member of the LGBT+ community, it is important to write them accurately with how the time period affects their lives, relationships, and their feelings about the world and themselves.

 Yes there are some that minimize those struggles and are just as effective, The Shabti by Megeara C. Lopez for example. It is a Supernatural Horror novel set in the 1930’s which treats the romance between the two lead male characters as a nonevent as compared to the supernatural entity that is haunting them. That is a rarity. 

To realistically portray a character, particularly an LGBT+ in a historical time period, it is important to accurately capture that time period, homophobic and transphobic warts and all and how the lead character challenges those standards. Otherwise, there's no point in writing about that time period at all. Ary Chest’s novel, Priceless Passion excels in giving us a gay man's struggles with class division, poverty, homophobia, and romance on his journey towards self-reflection and discovery of his own identity.

In 1927, Baltimore, Eustice Mercidale is a son of external wealth and privilege but internal misery and despair. His father, Burton is a coal industrialist who rules his family and business with an iron fist, emphasis on fist. His mother, Jessica, is a non-entity who goes along with whatever her husband wants to maintain social standing. His sister, Ophelia, is a wild flapper who challenges her father's authority. Eustice himself is torn between behaving like the good obedient son and his own desires for rebellion and finding his own path.

The first few chapters give us the opulence, extravagance, and corruption during the Roaring Twenties, the flaws that would later lead to the Great Depression. The Mercidales live a seemingly enviable life of immense wealth. They have a large network of business partners, society matrons, and affluent young people. They go to parties to see and be seen. Eustice and Ophelia went to the best schools and traveled. They seem like the family everyone would want to be like. But it is all a front.

Eustice feels the intense pressure to excel and be the #1 son who will take over the family business. He can't rebel but Ophelia does. She wears short dresses, goes out all night, and has many affairs. She openly flaunts her flamboyant behavior defying a staid cold environment that is all surface but no substance. That wants but doesn't need. That has but doesn't deserve. That owns but doesn't love. That controls but doesn't understand. Eustice understands these feelings but can't yet find it in his heart to openly challenge his father like his sister does.

There are some hints that Burton’s staid, religious, overly moral personality is a front for corrupt and criminal activity. The employees who mine and separate the coal to support the Mercidale’s lifestyle work under horrible conditions which are augmented by Burton’s decisions to cut corners on safety and worker benefits. He encourages Eustice to become more involved with the business so he is able to see this darker, more hypocritical side of his father. 

Eustice’s standing within the family requires him to defend his father's actions, because they will soon be his, while inwardly hating what Burton has done and the abusive hold that he has on his family. Burton’s hold on Eustice at first works all too well. Outwardly, he is the rigid businessman to be but inwardly has longings and desires towards men which he is forced to suppress. However, it is this inward private life which allows Eustice to take some action and find a path separate from his family.

This call to action takes human form into that of Cyrus, a server that catches Eustice's eye at a masquerade party. Eustice has had previous affairs with men, but they were always clandestine, secret, a way of finding personal pleasure while denying his own emotional longings. 

Eustice's flirtation with Cyrus builds into something larger as they encounter each other at various social gatherings and exchange some witty saucy by play. Eustice fantasizes about this new presence in his life until those fantasies become reality and they engage in a physical ongoing relationship. 

What makes his relationship with Cyrus different from previous ones, is the emotional connection that grows through their encounters that reaches beyond sex and sees something more substantial. Cyrus becomes someone that challenges Eustice’s worldview and whom he can visualize spending a life with. 

Those secret fantasies end up becoming reality when Eustice discovers that his new boyfriend is a Communist. Instead of being appalled, Eustice finds a way out of the ornate but oppressive half life in which he is living. He understands Cyrus’s motives in an abstract sense, and has no personal love or loyalty towards his father. However, he is still caught between his old safe rich world and a new life that consists of unpredictability, potential poverty, and outright rebellion and activism. The answer is made for him in a heart stopping chapter in which Eustice says goodbye to his life as a Mercidale in the most definite, unpredictable, and violent way possible. 

It is the second half of the book that takes Eustice away from his creature comforts where he really comes to his own as a character. He and Cyrus move to another part of the country away from his wealth, connection, and resources and he discovers an inner strength that he didn't know that he had. 

He works in domestic and secretarial positions and for the first time really understands what it means to work hard and earn very little, how oppressive or simply thoughtless those in charge can be towards those that work for them, and what it means to go to bed hungry or to panic when he or Cyrus are sick or injured and can't afford a good doctor or medicine. He understands why people like Cyrus fight against their oppressors. Eustice now knows the reasons behind them, though he doesn't condone their more violent actions which ultimately becomes a deal breaker between him and Cyrus. 

 Unlike his previous life in which he and his family had material possessions but barely disguised revulsion for each other, Eustice and Cyrus have very few things but a stronger love. The hard times make them closer and smooth out their rough edges and previously conflicted views. They cling to, uphold, and support each other to keep the proverbial wolf at bay outside the door.

During his time with Cyrus, Eustice also openly embraces life as a gay man, as openly as he can in the 1920’s and ‘30’s. He and Cyrus live together but to most people, they are simply roommates or co-workers (because they are different races, they are unable to pass as brothers without creating an elaborate story). They meet other LGBT+ people in secret windowless clubs and arrange to exit them in small groups or with lesbian women so spectators don't get nosy. 

Many of the sexual encounters are hidden by people who have to otherwise pretend to be happily engaged or married as Eustice reveals to another man in an earlier chapter. They can live together in secret but can't openly talk about their lovers without using coded phrases such as nicknames, or gender neutral names. 

They never know if they will face arrest or murder, or the possibility that someone who might have been a supportive ally before would either turn against them voluntarily or reveal too much accidentally. It is a suffocating existence for people to identify a certain way or loving someone when straight cis gender people do without a second thought or concern whether they will face arrest, public scrutiny, ostracism, bullying, unemployment, or death.

Eustice and Cyrus do their part in helping their fellow LGBT+ community members. They take part in a series of elaborate vigilante actions that protect and defend others from potential arrest or ramification. Because society will not protect them, they have to protect themselves. That is the kind of life when one lives on the outer fringes of what is seen as acceptable society and is one which Eustice is willing to pay if it means being with the man that he loves.

Priceless Passion is very realistic in how it portrays the hateful atmosphere that surrounds Eustice and Cyrus and the courage that they have by not only living within it but defying it in their own way.

 

Dancing in the Ring by Susan E. Sage; Historical Fiction Based on Family History Captures The Complexities of a Marriage

Dancing in the Ring by Susan E. Sage; Historical Fiction Based on Family History Captures The Complexities of a Marriage 

By Julie Sara Porter 

Bookworm Reviews

Spoilers: Susan E. Sage’s novel, Dancing in the Ring, tells the fictionalized account of her great uncle and aunt, Bob and Catherine McIntosh Sage with honesty, beauty, humor, tragedy, and thankfully without rose tinted nostalgia. She brings her ancestors to life recalling both the good and the bad of their passionate, eventful, and sometimes troubled marriage.

Catherine McIntosh is a bright ambitious law student in 1920’s Detroit ready to become a lawyer even though there are very few women attorneys. In 1922, she met Bob “The Battling Barrister” Sage, a fellow law student and professional boxer. Bob is smitten at first sight by the feisty and brainy Irish-American beauty. She does not reciprocate at first but ultimately is won over. The two formed a relationship despite conflicts within their family and pressures at school and work. 

Most of the book is set after their marriage in 1925 and recounts their good and bad times.

This is a thorough meticulous book with two full, rich, engaging, and captivating characters. Catherine is an independent career woman who in the 1920’s wasn't interested in marriage or starting a family. She saw stifling often violent marriages with her parents and sisters and has good reason to withdraw from the role that her family expects her to play.

 Catherine has a developed sense of fairness and justice such as when she defends her friend Grace, an African-American lawyer after she is faced with discrimination. During her legal career, she helps impoverished women and unwed mothers. 

Bob is interested in his legal practice but also has other interests that take up his time. He failed the bar three times before finally passing. For a time, he is more interested in the battles in the boxing ring than in the courtroom. His boxing career is successful until he starts aging out and he instead focuses on the law. Either way, he is a fighter and learned from personal experience.

Like Catherine, he is shaped by his environment. His father and some siblings, including his twin brother, died so he is used to being on his own. That fighting spirit is an asset in his life and career as he helps his clients and bonds with troubled youths, particularly his nephew.

With two people that are both independent, bad tempered, and possess fighting spirits, there are bound to be troubles within their marriage. Sage does not shy away from describing her great aunt and uncle's darker natures. Their marriage has many positive moments. They work together to create their own law practice, Sage & Sage. They attend dances, speakeasies, and social gatherings. They go to romantic spots and dance to standard music. Even though they don't have children, they have a wide circle of friends and family and are surrogate parents to Bob’s nephew, Bobby Gene. The book splashes with details about their lives in the 20’s and 30’s.

Unfortunately, for every pleasant moment, there are just as many unhappy ones. It would be tempting for Sage to be nostalgic and gloss over Bob and Catherine’s problems. It can be hard to write a family history and acknowledge the bad parts within a family and to see relatives as real people and those long ago times with a more critical view. Sage, however, faces these darker dimensions head on and does it in a way that is both beautiful and tragic.

The elder Sage's marriage was rocked by infidelity, alcoholism, miscarriages, and at times abuse. Their fights are harrowing as they use their words and sometimes hands and objects to make their points. The Great Depression takes a huge toll as their law firm closes. Catherine is denied employment because she is a woman and Bob’s boxing career ends just as his law one does. The stress of outside events and their own mercurial natures turn on them in frightening ways that results in separation. 

There is a sense of fatalism that resonates throughout the book mostly revealed through dreams and visions. Since Bob and Catherine come from Irish-American families, they are attuned to the Irish beliefs in the mystical, second sight, and extra sensory perception. Catherine's grandmother and Bob’s mother make predictions that are later found to be true. Some of the more frightening passages occur when Bob and Catherine have dreams. Catherine dreams that she is surrounded by fire and Bob sees visions of himself standing over three men that he might have killed. 

The dreams are constant threads that carry throughout the book and build to a climax that suggests that the Sage's fates were sealed long ago. Their lives had both triumph and tragedy, laughter and tears, joyful and angry moments. They might have avoided those endings that they saw by not meeting, getting married, or living their lives the way that they did. However after getting to know Bob and Catherine Sage, the Reader knows not only that they couldn't have but that they wouldn't want to. They lived their lives with passion, commitment, independence, strength, and honesty. They wouldn't have had it any other way.

 

New Book Alert: Rhapsody by Mitchell James Kaplan; Lilting Jazzy Historical Fiction About Kay Swift, Brilliant Musician, Composer, and George Gershwin's Mistress

 New Book Alert: Rhapsody by Mitchell James Kaplan; Lilting Jazzy Historical Fiction About Kay Swift, Brilliant Musician, Composer, and George Gershwin's Mistress

By Julie Sara Porter

Bookworm Reviews

Spoilers: The cliche "Behind every great man is a great woman" is outdated and demeaning especially when said woman is in the same field as the man. How many know that Zelda Sayres Fitzgerald wrote a novel called Save Me The Waltz and was a Surrealist artist? While many might know that Anne Morrow Lindbergh wrote Gift From The Sea, a spiritual and meditative series of essays that are considered a precursor to the environmental movement, few know that she was also an accomplished aviator and was the first woman in the United States to receive a glider pilot's license. 

Now also take the example of Katherine Faulkner "Kay" Swift (1897-1994).  She was a performer and composer of popular and classical music and was the first woman to score a hit musical completely. In fact, that musical, Fine and Dandy has produced several jazz standards including "Can't We Be Friends?" that are still performed to this day. Oh yes and her lover was also a noted composer of popular songs. You might have heard of him, George Gershwin.

Mitchell James Kaplan's historical novel, Rhapsody, brings Swift out from being an afterthought or a footnote in Gershwin's history and allows her to claim her own history. It is a beautiful lilting novel that is like a good jazz tune: independent, smooth, and unforgettable.

Swift was born to a family that included her music critic father, Samuel Shippen Swift who died when she was young. She was trained as a classical musician and composer at the Institute of Musical Art (now the Juilliard School.) She played with the Edith Rubel Trio, a classical trio. During a performance she met her future husband James Paul "Jimmy" Warburg, a banker and poet. The two married and had three children before Swift met Gershwin in 1925.

The two engaged in a long term affair. 

Swift was a musical advisor during his many productions and it was during their romance that Fine and Dandy was produced. Warburg also benefited artistically from Swift's interest in popular music by becoming Fine and Dandy's lyricist, under his pseudonym, Paul James. Swift and Warburg divorced in 1934 and Swift and Gershwin continued their relationship (though never married) and remained together until Gershwin's death in 1937.

Swift continued to work after the death of her lover. She and Warburg contributed songs to the musicals, The First Little Show and The Garrick Gaieties while they were still married. In 1934, Swift composed Alma Mater, a ballet for choreographer George Balanchine which was Balanchine's first original work with an American setting.

After Gershwin's death, Swift and his brother, Ira collaborated to complete and arrange his unfinished works such as Sleepless Night. 

Swift was also staff composer for Radio City Music Hall, wrote music for the Rockettes, provided the score for Cornelia Otis Skinner's one woman show, Paris '90', and wrote the book, Who Could Ask For Anything More? based on her second marriage to rancher, Faye Hubbard. (Who Could Ask For Anything More? was made into the movie, Never A Dull Moment starring Fred McMurray and Irene Dunne). 

Swift continued to transcribe, annotate, arrange, and perform Gershwin's music until her diagnosis of Alzheimer's in 1991 and death in 1993.

Kaplan's perception of Kay Swift is of a woman in love not just with Gershwin but with music. In fact, her romance with Gershwin is seen as more than a dalliance to satisfy carnal pleasures. It's a more emotional bond shared by two people who love music.

Swift's first encounter with Gershwin expresses that love beautifully. She hears him perform his piece, Rhapsody in Blue. She recognizes the sadness, exhilaration, and emotion expressed in the composition. Swift sees in Gershwin a soul mate and one with whom she can share a mutual language of music. 

Most of the book shows Swift at the forefront of Gershwin's most famous works. She and Warburg attend a performance of Lady Be Good (which coincidentally also features in another book that I am reviewing, Lady Be Good: The Life and Times of Dorothy Hale by Pamela Hamilton). He experiments with works like the American ballet, An American in Paris. 

Swift is supportive as Gershwin travels on his own to South Carolina, a trip that proves fruitful when he becomes fascinated with the novel, Porgy and the Gullah dialect of the African-American South Carolina community. The results are his magnum opus, Porgy and Bess which flopped in his lifetime but became a posthumous success and is still performed regularly on stage. (Constantly aware of the immense talent of African-American performers and concerned that any subsequent producers would try to recreate Porgy and Bess in blackface, Gershwin's will insisted that any performance of his musical featured only black performers. While Porgy bears some controversy because of Gershwin's authorship, it has also received praise for his understanding and support of the African-American community.) 

Swift also is on hand as he creates music for lighter musical comedies like Girl Crazy and Shall We Dance and that he harbors no distinction between his serious highbrow works and his lighthearted affairs. He quotes his friends Louis Armstrong and F. Scott Fitzgerald, "Why only fluffy entertainment or high art? Can't a great chef grill a burger once in a while?"

Gershwin's music and attention also propel Swift into a richer, more creative professional life. Before she met Gershwin, she was strictly interested in playing classical music, considering popular music predictable and trite. After she meets Gershwin, Swift sees popular music through different eyes and appreciates the emotion and work that composers and lyricists put into these memorable tunes.

When she plays Gershwin's music, Swift puts her own touches and improvisations making them her own. She also begins playing her own musical pieces that come into her head. Fine and Dandy ends up being an excellent lighthearted musical and is praised for its jazzy songs. Her composition, Alma Mater, combines inspiration from Ravel and Stravinsky to make her own work.

It's clear that Swift has an immense talent but not much opportunity to pursue it. Gershwin ends up being a catalyst for Swift to pursue her talents to independence and success.

Besides Gershwin, Swift meets many other people whose creative pursuits inspire her to put herself forward. People like Alexander Wollcott, Duke Ellington, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Josephine Baker, Nadia Boulanger, Arthur "Harpo" Marx, Maurice Ravel, Fats Waller, Louis Armstrong, Dorothy Parker, Fred and Adele Astaire, Eddie Cantor, and George Balanchine. (Oddly enough even though they traveled in similar circles, Rhapsody does not mention Dorothy Hale nor does the book, Lady Be Good mention Swift.) It's not just Gershwin that influences her, it's also these other people who inspire Swift to express herself freely through her music. 

This love is not shared with Warburg. Kaplan's writing doesn't turn Warburg into a bastard or irredeemable. He is more nuanced than that. He is a commendable lyricist and doesn't mind "sharing" his wife, having affairs of his own as well. Warburg is also seen as a victim of antisemitism being derided by Henry Ford as a "Jewish banker" and can see Hitler's tyranny even before it officially begins.

Warburg just operates on a different level from Swift and this creates a distance between them that continues to grow. He doesn't share her love of music or performing. Gershwin however shares that love of music, making him her soul mate. Gershwin and Swift share the same passion for music and bring out that passion in each other.

People reading Rhapsody will know about George Gershwin going in but once the book is closed they will come to understand Kay Swift. This is the perfect book to make Swift move to center stage.

New Book Alert: Lady Be Good: The Life and Times of Dorothy Hale by Pamela Hamilton; A Fascinating and Brilliant True Story About The Life and Mysterious Death of A Talented But Now Forgotten Entertainer

 New Book Alert: Lady Be Good: The Life and Times of Dorothy Hale by Pamela Hamilton; A Fascinating and Brilliant True Story About The Life and Mysterious Death of A Talented But Now Forgotten Entertainer

SoBy Julie Sara Porter

Bookworm Reviews

Spoilers: There are probably not many people today who are familiar with the name of Dorothy Hale (1905-1938). If they are admirers of the artwork of Frida Kahlo, they may recognize her as the subject of Kahlo's painting of The Suicide of Dorothy Hale, which depicts Hale as a beautiful woman falling from a building to her death. So in other words she is similar to Peg Entwhistle, the stage actress who tried to find success in Hollywood only to jump off the 13th letter of the Hollywood sign to her death. Like Entwhistle, if Hale is known at all, it is by the way that she left this world rather than her contribution within it. However, former NBC News Producer, Pamela Hamilton aims to change all of that with her fascinating and brilliant fictional biography Lady Be Good: The Life and Times of Dorothy Hale.

Hale, nee Dorothy Donovan, was from an affluent Catholic family with Victorian values. Hale rebelled against her upbringing by pursuing a career. She eventually became a dancer and Ziegfeld Follies girl and was part of the chorus of the Broadway production of Lady Be Good. Hale also starred with her friend, Rosamond Pinchot in Abide With Me, a play written by another friend, Clare Boothe Luce. She also had small roles in the movies, Cynara and Catherine the Great.

Hale was married twice. Her first marriage to millionaire stockbroker, Gaillard Thomas ended in divorce. Her second to muralist, fresco artist, and portrait painter, Garland Hale ended with his death in 1931. She had many love affairs including with Constantin Alajalov, a cover artist, Russell Davenport, a writer for Time Magazine, Isamu Noguchi, a sculptor, artist, and designer, and Harry Hopkins, a WPA administrator and Roosevelt's top advisor. She was also a regular member of New York's Cafe Society having friends such as Kahlo, Luce, Cole Porter, Frank Crowninshield, Buckminster Fuller,and many of the best and brightest of New York society in the 1920's and '30's.

Her death was the subject of much speculation at the time which Kahlo's painting was a part of it. What is known is that the day before her death, she hosted a party inviting many of her close friends as a farewell party explaining that she was soon going on a long trip. The next day she fell sixteen floors to her death from her Central Park South apartment.

 It was unknown whether she fell, jumped, or was pushed. However, second hand accounts at the time reported of "financial troubles" and "disappointments about her age and unhappy love affairs." The press portrayed Hale as a fragile vulnerable woman who took her own life. Despite Kahlo's genuine grief over the death of her friend, her painting did much to add to that unverified assumption that Hale committed suicide.

Hamilton's book does a lot to discredit the speculation of Hale's death and instead focuses on her life. Far from the fragile depressed lonely woman that the press portrayed her after death, Hale is written by Hamilton as a vibrant and bright woman full of life and excited to be surrounded by a talented and eccentric group of friends and lovers.

Lady Be Good is practically a whirlwind of color, art, entertainment, glamor, and excitement. One that Hale is glad to be a part of even though she does not achieve as much personal success as she would like. She is surrounded by bright and talented people and for the most part, she is happy to be with them. The famous names that come in and out of the book and appear throughout Hale's life include Clare Boothe Luce, Frida Kahlo, Fred Astaire, Frank Crowninshield, Dorothy Parker, Rosamond Pinchot, Alva Vanderbilt Belmont, Eugene O'Neill, Isamu Noguchi, George Gershwin, Cole Porter, Gertrude Stein, Samuel Goldwyn, King Vidor, John Barrymore, Buckminster Fuller, and many many others. It is a brilliant cast of the intelligentsia and literati of New York's Cafe Society and The Golden Age of Hollywood. 

Dorothy enjoys the life that she is in and the freedom that being a part of that group implies.This is the main reason why her first marriage doesn't work out.

 Hale is an exciteable and enthusiastic woman who enjoys going to clubs, theater performances, salons, and art shows. Gaillard is stiff and dull and is only interested in making money. Hale marred him mostly out of fear when a serious injury ended her dancing days. After the fear subsides, their differences becomes insurmountable and Hale heads for Reno to file for divorce.

Hale finds a happier life with Gardner Hale who because of his artistic talent and connections is also a welcome member of Hale's wide social circle. His death causes Hale to fall into a deep depression which takes her a long time to get through. Hamilton's writing suggests that her romances with Isamu Noguchi and Harry Hopkins were because of loneliness and to fill an empty void in her life.

After Gardner's death, Hale attempts a Hollywood career. She films a screen test that is widely received and she is even described as a "beautiful up and coming star." Unfortunately, she is unable to receive success with so many other stars in Hollywood's galaxy. 

She also stars in Abide With Me which even though critics brutally panned it, she had a good time performing in because of her friendship with Luce and Pinchot.

The point that Hamilton is trying to make with this fictional biography is to celebrate Hale's life rather than focus on her death. In fact when it does happen, the circumstances are rather aribtrary and are given short shrift. To Hamilton, Hale's life was more important and she was a woman who lived it to the fullest.

Weekly Reader: Twenties Girl by Sophie Kinsella; Cute Chick Lit With A Fascinating Ghost and Standard Protagonist

Weekly Reader: Twenties Girl by Sophie Kinsella; Cute Chick Lit With A Fascinating Ghost and Standard Protagonist

By Julie Sara Porter

Bookworm Reviews




PopSugar Reading Challenge: A book that has "20" or "Twenty" in the title


Spoilers: There are many Chick Lit stories in which the protagonist, usually a lovelorn woman stuck in a dead end job, receives magical assistance from a unique advisor whether it's a genie, a fairy, the ghost of a beloved movie star, or in the case of Sophie Kinsella's Twenties Girl, a deceased relative. The problem with most of these novels is that the unique advisor is so well written and fascinating that they end up being the best part of the book. The rest including the modern protagonist pale in comparison and the parts without them seem like filler.


Unfortunately, Twenties Girl firmly fits the rule rather than the exception. It tells the story of a young Londoner who is visited by the ghost of her deceased great aunt and makes all of the inevitable mistakes in romance, work, and friendships before learning the proverbial lesson and helping the ghost move on.


Lara Lington is having a rough time lately. She went into partnership with her friend, Nora, to become a corporate headhunter until Nora abandoned her. Lara's boyfriend, Josh, broke up with her and she is convinced that he still loves her. She feels intimidated by her famous Uncle Bill ("Yes the Bill Lington," Lara insists) who runs a successful chain of coffee shops and is peddling his Two Little Coins Seminars in which he offers the keys to success in which anyone can start, like him, with two little coins and a big dream.


Lara is already pretty miserable and when she is told that her 105 year old Great Aunt Sadie Lancaster has died and she has to attend the funeral. The funeral has a darkly comic tone as it is clear that no one had much contact with Great Aunt Sadie, nor was very close to her so no one particularly wants to be at her funeral. Lara's parents are there to assuage their guilt over not visiting her at her retirement home. Uncle Bill and his wife, Aunt Trudy are there to promote Bill's caring family man persona. Their daughter, Lara's cousin, Diamante to promote her fashion label and so Bill can pay for her charity boob job. (She's getting a boob job and then giving an interview afterwords-"half the proceeds of the interview go to charity.") Lara's sister, Tonya (Tonya and Lara? Hmm, someone loved Dr. Zhivago enough to name two sisters out of the female leads) is there to point out other people's miseries. Lara is practically dragged there by her parents when she would rather sit at home and try to save her flagging business and moan and whine about Josh.

The funeral is bound to be a brief, dull, impersonal one when Lara has an encounter that makes it less dull and way more personal. A dark haired woman in a lime green flapper dress appears only to Lara and bemoans about not having her favorite necklace. The woman is the ghost of Lara's Great Aunt Sadie, but as she looked when she was 23: a devil may care exuberant flapper. At first Lara doubts her imagination and mind, but after she finally comes to terms that Sadie is real and a ghost, she and Sadie strike a deal. Sadie needs her favorite necklace because when she wore it she "felt special." Lara needs help fixing the problems in her life. Lara will look for Sadie's necklace if Sadie helps Lara with her career and lovelife.


The novel sparkles whenever Sadie enters the scene. Kinsella did a great job of capturing the style of a prototypical flapper. She describes the fringe and bejeweled A-line dresses, short bob cuts, and the deco accessories perfectly. She also brilliantly recalls the slang such as "barney mugging" for sex, "gaspers" for cigarettes, and so on. Sadie is a blithe spirit who lives for the moment even after her moments have passed.


Sadie's backstory is revealed throughout the book and interests the Reader with the small doses that they receive. Sadie lived with conservative parents dismayed by her free spirited lifestyle and a brother who was killed in WWI. She had a best friend, Bunty, with whom Sadie shared hi-jinks like stealing cars, dancing to jazz, and getting in plenty of trouble. She also had a lover, Stephen, who was a dedicated artist and painted landscapes and nude portraits of Sadie. Her parents caught them and Stephen was sent away while Sadie was forced into a catastrophic and short lived marriage. Kinsella showed that despite her family's original perception of Sadie as "a million year old nobody," Sadie was an interesting person who lived an interesting life. Unfortunately, Kinsella did that so well that this Reader wonders why there weren't any flashbacks of Sadie's life or the book didn't take place exclusively in the 1920's and focus on Sadie.


Unfortunately, Sadie is merely a supporting character to a less developed protagonist. Lara does not have Sadie's spunk or ability to get past situations. In fact most of the time, she comes across as immature and whiny. After Josh breaks up with her, Lara constantly insists that they will still be together. She leaves voice mail messages and follows him. She has Sadie use some new found possession abilities to find out what were the reasons for their breakup and she acts according to those reasons. This is supposed to make Lara seem adorable but instead comes across as shrill and stalkerish.

She has some allegedly cute moments with a new love interest but they are mostly repetitive and follow the standard plotline of people saying and assuming the wrong thing just to add complications that we've read and seen many times. Sadie is the most interesting part of the book and it shows.


Lara only comes into her own twice in the novel. The first is when her former friend, Nora returns and tries to poach a client that Lara did most of the work on. Lara tells her off about abandoning her and lying about her experience in headhunting. Lara manages to start her own business with Sadie's help in finding clients and Lara's outlook on comparing to matchmaking, matching people with the perfect job.


The second time comes after Lara learns the truth about Sadie's necklace and what her true legacy was. Once she learns this, she wants to make right by Sadie and honor her the way she deserves. She calls out the person who robbed her of her legacy and stole her necklace to remove all traces of the robbery. She also creates a memorial for Sadie that is the perfect send off. A 1920's dress code is given and people laugh and drink champagne with a guzzle and a cry of "Tally-ho!" Just the way Sadie wanted.


Twenties Girl does provide a good theme of our family history and heritage being a part of us one that Lara finally understands. It's a good theme with Sadie as a memorable character to reveal it. But hidden inside a typical chick Lit novel with the typical feather brained lead, it doesn't stand a ghost of a chance.

Classics Corner: The World of Jeeves by P.G. Wodehouse; Winning Funny Stories About A Goofy Dilettante And His Helpful Valet

Classics Corner: The World of Jeeves by P.G. Wodehouse; Winning Funny Stories About A Goofy Dilettante And His Helpful Valet




By Julie Sara Porter

Bookworm Reviews




Spoilers: You may be having a sense of deja vu as you look through the blog lately. I am reviewing some books that were reviewed when I first began. The main reason that I am doing this is that these were among the first reviews that I did. You know how it is, when you look at your original works and think how you could have done them differently. They were okay, but could be better especially when the work was so good. You want to give the book the full attention that it deserves.

So I am giving more detailed reviews of some of my favorite books.


I always say that Wodehouse’s Jeeves and Bertie Wooster short stories are the cure for what ails you. From the moment that Wodehouse introduced the pair in the story, “Jeeves Takes Charge,” the wise valet and his foolish gentleman about town employer captivated their Readers with silly antics, humorous asides, and witty one-liners.


Every page is filled with hilarious situations with Bertie Wooster dealing with his love-lorn friends, scheming relatives, and madcap situations. Bertie and the others usually solicit the help of Jeeves to get them out of whatever trouble they are in.

Wodehouse’s writing and Bertie’s first-person narration stands out. Bertie constantly waffles in his description and misquotes or forgets literary quotes. (“If you give them a what's-his-name, they take a thingummy!”) Bertie makes a fool of himself when he tries to command Jeeves but often acquiesces in the end (usually involving Bertie’s fashion faux pas or Jeeves’ desire to travel).

Many of the passages are laugh-out-loud hilarious even after multiple readings and are perfect for a beautiful spring day or a not-so-beautiful stressful winter day or any day that is beautiful or not-so-beautiful.

There are many favorite stories but these in particular stand out (I will also include favorite quotes from each story):


1. “Jeeves Takes Charge”
The historic first meeting of the duo sets the stage for things to come. Bertie first meets Jeeves when after a wild previous night with the members of his gentlemen's club, The Drones, Bertie is hung over the next morning. Upon arrival as a new valet, Jeeves creates a mixture that instantly perks up Bertie's “old bean.”

This story creates many of the tropes found in the other stories: unsuitable fiancees, goofy gentlemen, eccentric older relatives, bratty kids, and elaborate schemes which Bertie gets talked into. This time. Bertie's temperamental fiancee, Florence Craye wants him to steal his Uncle Willoughby’ s manuscript before it gets published because it details Willoughby's wild youth with Florence’s father

The situation is set up as Bertie waffles about how to steal the manuscript and what to do with it once he has it in his possession. This also shows his early reluctance and snobbishness against confiding in Jeeves. He later learns that much of the situation would have been resolved quicker if he had put him in his confidence sooner.

Quote
Bertie: Oh Jeeves about that checked suit?
Jeeves: Yes sir?
Bertie: Is it really frost?
Jeeves: A trifle too bizarre in my opinion, sir.
Bertie: But lots of fellows ask me who my tailor is.
Jeeves: Doubtless in order to avoid him, sir.
Bertie: He's supposed to be one of the best men in London!
Jeeves: I am saying nothing against his moral character, sir!
Bertie: Alright Jeeves, you know give the bally thing away to somebody.
Jeeves: Thank you, sir. I gave it to the under gardener last night, a little more tea sir?


2. “Scoring Off Jeeves”/”Sir Roderick Comes to Lunch”
Some of the stories are so tied together, that they might as well be one. These are a pair of those stories and they introduce probably Bertie's most prominent antagonists: Sir Roderick Glossop, analyst or as Bertie refers to him “janitor of the loony bin”, Glossop's daughter, Honoria, a pushy bright young woman who is built like a wrestler, and Agatha Gregson, Bertie's snobbish mean aunt.

The story, “Scoring Off Jeeves” also shows what happens to Bertie when Jeeves isn't around. He usually gets into more trouble. In this instance, Jeeves is away on vacation and Bertie helps his love sick friend, Bingo Little win the heart of Honoria Glossop, who harbors a not-so-secret crush on Bertie. Without going into great detail, things get messed up and Bertie finds himself engaged to Honoria.

The next story “Sir Roderick Comes to Lunch”, Jeeves resolves this situation thanks to some coincidences involving three stray kittens, a misplaced hat, a dead fish, and Bertie's trouble making cousins, Claude and Eustace. The story involves characters assuming different things and the wrong things happening at the right time. It also shows how much Jeeves is willing to do to get his employer out of these situations.

Quote:
Bertie: I've told you how I got engaged to Honoria Glossop in my efforts to do young Bingo Little a good turn. Well on this particular morning she had lugged me around to Aunt Agatha's for lunch and I was just saying, “Death where is the sting?” when I realised the worst was yet to come.


3. “Aunt Agatha Takes the Count”
Bertie and Jeeves have a talent for getting in trouble no matter where they go and Monte Carlo is no exception. Bertie meets the beautiful and wild, Aline Hemingway and tries to help her and her parson brother, Sydney out of a jam much to Jeeves’ concern.

While as hilarious as the other stories, this one also focuses on mystery and crime as Bertie encounters con artists and stolen jewels. It is a nice change of pace in putting the characters in some real potential danger with shady figures rather than their usual comic misadventures.

There are also some really interesting moments in which we get some information from Jeeves’ past about a previous employer. Bertie also has a heroic moment when he finally stands up to his bullying Aunt Agatha.

Quote:
Bertie: I don’t know when I've had a more juicy moment. It was one of those occasions about which I shall prattle to my grandchildren-if I ever have any, which at the moment of going to press seems more or less of a hundred to one shot. Aunt Agatha simply deflated before my very eyes. It reminded me of when I once saw some intrepid aeronauts letting the gas out of a balloon….. I dug out my entire stock of manly courage, breathed a short prayer, and let her have it right in the thorax.


4. “The Aunt and the Sluggard”
There are a few stories that are set in New York, to explore Wodehouse's fascination with America (which he lived from time to time and wrote Broadway musicals with Guy Bolton). Wodehouse satirized America like he satirized England with his wit, hilarious situations, and stereotypes made funny. He depicted America's captains of industry, vapid chorus girls, Bohemian artists, and naive Midwesterners in his New York stories.

This particular story is a fine example of Wodehouse's gentle mocking of the U.S.A. Bertie's poet friend, Rocky Todd receives a letter from his Illinoisan Aunt Isobel to describe the New York nightlife. However, Rocky lives in the country and doesn't like visiting New York City unless he has to visit his editor. No problem, Jeeves says. Jeeves will describe the cabarets, parties, and celebrities and Rocky can write letters based on the descriptions. Unfortunately he does such a good job that Isobel has come to visit and assumes Bertie's apartment is her nephew's.

Besides playing into comic misunderstandings, this story also offers the Reader some humorous stereotypes. Rocky is the typical poet that can “look at a worm and wonder what it is doing for hours at a stretch,” almost a 1920’s version of a Beatnik. Rocky’s aunt is similar to the small town tourist who sees New York City as a Fantasy Land reprieve from their daily life.

The biggest joke is Jimmy Mundy, a parody of preacher, Billy Sunday. With Mundy, Wodehouse satirizes the American Hell-Fire-and-Brimstone pastors, who believe everything around them is a gateway to sin as well as their followers who hang onto the pastors’ every word.

Quote:
Bertie:” Dear Freddie,
Well here I am in New York. It's not a bad place. I'm not having a bad time. Everything's not bad. The cabarets aren't bad. Don't know when I shall be back. How's everybody? Cheerio!-
Yours,
Bertie
P.S.: Seen old Ted lately?”
Not that I cared about old Ted, but if I hadn't dragged him in, I couldn't have gotten the confounded thing on to the second page.


5.“Jeeves in the Springtime”/”Jeeves and the Little Woman”
Similar to “Scoring Off Jeeves”/Sir Roderick Comes to Lunch,” these two stories are better experienced together because they tell a continuous story both of which deal with Bertie's friend Bingo Little wanting to marry a waitress and he, Bertie, and Jeeves use the romance novels of Rosie M. Banks to soften Bingo's uncle, Lord Bittlesham.

While the first story has a very awkward conclusion, the second story builds on that in a most unlikely and surprising manner in a way that ends up changing Bingo's status throughout the remainder of the series.

Most of the humor in these stories are supplied by Rosie M. Banks’ maudlin romance novels with titles like Only A Factory Girl, Mervyn Keene, Clubman and The Woman Who Braved All. The books are intentionally melodramatic and corny as they make fun of the Romance novels of their day. They are probably recognizable by modern Romance Readers as well. Rosie M. Banks’ books are no doubt the type of books that make critics guffaw and Readers sigh. (Think of them as the Twilight of their day.)

Quote
Bertie(reading The Woman Who Braved All): “‘What can prevail’-Millicent's eyes flashed as she faced the stern old man.-’what can prevail against an pure and all consuming love? Neither principalities nor powers, nor all the puny prohibitions of guardians and parents. I love your son, Lord Windermere, and nothing can keep us apart. Since time first began, this love of ours was fated and who are you to pit yourself against the decrees of fate?’
The Earl looked at her keenly from beneath his bushy eyebrows 'Humph,’ he said.”..
….. Lord Bittlesham: I-I considered that I have been -er defied. Yes, defied.
Bertie: But who are you to pit yourself against the decrees of Fate? You see this love of theirs was fated since time began you know.
I'm bound to admit that if he'd said “Humph!” at this juncture, he would have had me stymied.

6. “Without the Option”

One of the most popular images from the Jeeves stories is Bertie stealing a police officer's helmet during Boat Race Night, the annual race between Oxford and Cambridge. Many of the stories and novels call back to that moment and that image achieved popular culture status as other authors refer to it. The first episode of the Granada Jeeves and Wooster series has Bertie getting arrested on Boat Race Night before he encounters Jeeves the next morning.

This is the story in which the theft of the police officer's helmet is introduced as a plot point. Bertie, who has been arrested for the theft, gets off with a fine, but his friend Oliver “Sippy” Slippery is held for 30 days without the option. What’s worse is that Sippy has to visit the Pringles, friends of his aunt's. Jeeves suggests Bertie, who feels guilty about Sippy's arrest, impersonate Sippy and visit them instead.

Besides the policeman helmet fiasco, the story becomes even sillier when Bertie encounters the Pringles particularly Aunt Jane who hasn't forgotten that Sippy chased her cat as a child and never lets Bertie forget it and Heloise, who resembles a certain familiar face from Bertie's past.

Quote:
Jeeves: I would definitely suggest, sir, that you left London as soon as possible and remained hidden for some little time in some retreat where you would not likely to be found.
Bertie: Eh why?
Jeeves: During the last hour, Mrs. Spencer Gregson has been on the telephone three times, sir, endeavouring to get into communication with you.
Bertie: Aunt Agatha!
Jeeves: Yes sir, I gathered from her remarks that she had been reading in the evening's paper a report of this morning's proceedings in the police court.
Bertie: Jeeves, this is a time for deeds not words! Pack-and that right speedily.
Jeeves: I have packed, sir.
Bertie: Find out where there is a train to Cambridge.
Jeeves: There is one in forty minutes sir.
Bertie: Call a taxi.
Jeeves: A taxi is at the door sir.
Bertie: Good then lead me to it.

7. “Jeeves and the Yuletide Spirit”
Even Christmas is not safe from Bertie's antics. In this story, we meet two new regulars to the Jeeves stories as Bertie visits the country for the holidays.

The first is Tuppy Glossop, Sir Roderick's nephew, a practical joker who once played a joke on Bertie at The Drones Club. Ever since then Bertie has sworn to get even.
The other character is Roberta “Bobbie” Wickham, a red-haired flapper whom Jeeves describes “as a charming young lady, but much too frivolous.” She is forever jumping headlong into schemes and putting Bertie right in the middle. In this story, she suggests that Bertie puncture Tuppy's water bottle in retaliation for his earlier prank. The results are not what Bertie expected but are amusement for the Reader.

Quote:
Bertie: The next thing that happened was a bit of a lull in the proceedings. For about three and a quarter seconds or more possibly more we just stood there, drinking each other in so to speak, the old boy still attached with a limpet-like grip to my elbow. If I hadn't been in a dressing gown and he in pinky pyjamas with a blue stripe, and if he hadn't glaring quite so much as if he were shortly going to commit murder, the tableau would have looked rather like one of those advertisements you see in magazines, where the experienced elder is patting the younger man's arm and saying “My boy if you subscribe to the Mutt-Jeff Correspondence School of Oswego, Kan. as I did you may some day, like me, become the Third Assistant Vice-president of the Schenectady Consolidated Nail-File and Tweezer Corporation.”


8. “Jeeves and the Song of Songs”

This story is another one that shows how far Bertie will go to help friends and family. Tuppy falls in love with Cora Bellinger, an opera singer, and seeks to impress Cora by singing at a “clean bright entertainment for Eastenders”. When Bertie learns that Tuppy broke up with his cousin Angela to get with Cora, Jeeves suggests Bertie also sing at the entertainment. The goal is to embarrass Tuppy in front of Cora and put him back together with Angela. 

The entertainment goes over as expected with Bertie and Tuppy choosing to sing the same song, a sappy number called “Sonny Boy” and getting attacked by a vegetable throwing crowd for their efforts.

We also meet Aunt Dahlia, Angela's mother who Bertie calls his “good aunt” to a point. Even though she is not as mean or as bullying as Aunt Agatha, Dahlia, also knows how to get Bertie to do exactly what she wants.

Quote:
Dahlia: Jeeves, you're a marvel.
Bertie: Jeeves, you're an ass
Dahlia: What do you mean he's an ass? I think it's the greatest scheme I ever heard.
Bertie: Me sing Sonny Boy at Beefy Bingham's clean bright entertainment? I can see myself!
Jeeves: You sing it daily in your bath, sir. Mr. Wooster has a light pleasant baritone-
Dahlia: I'll bet he has.
Bertie: Between singing Sonny Boy in one's bath, Jeeves and singing it before a hall full of assorted blood-orange merchants and their young, there is a substantial difference.
Dahlia: Bertie, you'll sing and like it!
Bertie: I will not!
Dahlia: Bertie!
Bertie: Nothing will induce -
Dahlia: Bertie, you will sing Sonny Boy on Tuesday, the third prox, and sing it like a lark at sunrise or may an aunt's curse-
Bertie: I won't!
Dahlia: Think of Angela!
Bertie: Dash Angela!
Dahlia: Bertie!
Bertie: No, I mean hang it all!
Dahlia: You won't?
Bertie: I won't.
Dahlia: That is your last word is it?
Bertie: It is. Once and for all, Aunt Dahlia nothing will induce me to let out so much as a single note.

And so that afternoon I sent a pre-paid wire to Beefy Bingham, offering my services in the cause and by nightfall the thing was fixed up. I was billed to perform next but one after the intermission. Following me came Tuppy and immediately after him came Miss Cora Bellringer, well-known operatic soprano.




9. “ Indian Summer of an Uncle”
Apparently, the young aren't the only ones getting romantic in these stories. The older characters do as well. This story features Aunt Agatha forcing Bertie to interfere with his Uncle George's marriage to a woman half his age.

There are some clever bits such as when Bertie encounters the woman's aunt, a talkative dizzy older woman that confuses Bertie so much that he practically forgets the reason he came. The story also resolves itself, thanks to Jeeves, in a way that is kind of sweet and pleases all parties involved.


Quote:
Bertie: The point to be considered now is what will Aunt Agatha do about this? You know her, Jeeves. She is not like me. I'm broad-minded. If Uncle George wants to marry waitresses then let him say I. I hold that rank is but the guinea stamp.
Jeeves: Guinea stamp sir.
Bertie: All right, guinea stamp. Though I don't believe that there is such a thing. I shouldn't have thought that they come higher than five bob. Well as I was saying I maintain that rank is but a guinea stamp and a girl is a girl for all that.
Jeeves: For a’ that sir. The poet Burns wrote in the North British dialect.
Bertie: Well for a’ that if you prefer it.
Jeeves: I have no preference, sir but it is simply that the poet Burns-
Bertie: Never mind about the poet Burns.
Jeeves: No sir.
Bertie: Forget the poet Burns.
Jeeves: Very good, sir
Bertie: Expunge the poet Burns from your mind.

Jeeves: I will do so immediately, sir.
Bertie: What we have to consider is not the poet Burns but the Aunt Agatha. She will kick Jeeves.
Jeeves: Very probably, sir.


10. “Bertie Changes His Mind”
This story gives us a chance to see what Jeeves really thinks of his employer. This is the only one told from Jeeves's perspective.

While not as hilarious as Bertie's narrations, Jeeves’ point of view has a dry almost sarcastic wit as he describes Bertie's shortcomings and how he gets past them. It also shows him a little more relaxed with his peers than he is with those on a higher social status than himself so we get another side to his character.

Jeeves is methodical as he helps Bertie through a plot that involves a wayward schoolgirl and a speech Bertie has to give at her school. While this isn't as intricate as many of Jeeves’ other plots, it shows that the valet is only human and sometimes even he has to rely on contrived coincidence and a bit of name dropping to aid his employer.

Quote:
Jeeves: Mr. Wooster is a young gentleman with practically every desirable quality except one. I do not mean brains for in an employer brains are not desirable. The quality to which I allude is hard to define, but perhaps I might call it the gift of dealing with the Unfortunate Situation. In the process of the Unusual, Mr. Wooster is too prone to smile weakly and allow his eyes to protrude. He lacks presence…… to Mr. Wooster it was plainly an ordeal with the worst description. He gave one look at the young ladies who were all staring at him in an extremely unwinking manner then blinked and started to pick feebly at his coat-sleeves. His aspect reminded me of that of a bashful young man who persuaded against his better judgement to go on the platform and assist a conjurer in his entertainment suddenly discovers that rabbits and hard-boiled eggs are being taken out of the top of his head.