On My Own

Today, I journeyed to beautiful Fresno, California.  The purpose?  To attend a symposium for grad students at Fresno State.  This will be my first academic presentation, the first time I've spoken to an audience of my peers on the results of my own original research.  I've presented my findings before, don't get me wrong.  But those audiences were mainly older Sacramentans, easy to enthrall with the story of my great-aunt Daisy and her unique place in Sacramento history.

This time, my audience will include students, critical, bright, questioning students.  I know my material--I love my material.  Lost Cause themes in the films of the 1930s is surely a subject to warm anyone's heart.  And I know it cold.  Still....

I had a nice drive down here from my little home in the Grove.  Along the way, I remembered the things I learned from the sainted Joe Pitti in my two California history classes with him.  As I went through Stockton, I recalled what I learned about the State Mental Hospital there.  During the last half of the nineteenth century, a disproportionate percentage of the inmates there were Irish or of Irish descent.  Why, you may ask (especially those of you who claim an Irish heritage)?  It seems like the upright non-Irish officials in California found that the Irish penchant for heavy drinking, moroseness, and inveterate whoring made them, in a word, crazy.  So off to the hospital they went, to dry out, to clear up whatever venereal disease they may have acquired, and to generally get their shit together.

Past Stockton, the little town of Lathrop was built as what is known as a "spite town."  The Stockton city fathers, during the hey day of the Central Pacific Railroad, decided to play chicken with the Big Four.  Yes, that's right, they wouldn't let the railroad through their fair burg without a chunk of coin coming their way, too much coin for the tight-fisted RR tycoons.  So, the CP bypassed Stockton and went through their own created town, Lathrop, named for the wife of Leland Stanford, Jane Lathrop Stanford. And then 100+ years later, Stockton went bankrupt.  Somewhere, Collis Huntington is laughing.

Lathrop also made California history as its train station is where David Terry, a nasty-ass, pro-slavery, Senator-killer, met his demise.  For those of you who don't know Terry's story, follow the link for a look at this freak-show of early California.

Bad, bad David Terry

One more note about history struck me as I drove through the fertile San Joaquin Valley.  Before it became a haven for all kinds of tasty crops, it was the center of the very profitable hide-and-tallow industry.  Huge cattle ranches spread across the Valley, raising cows not for the delicious steak and hamburger, but for the leather for shoes and the tallow for candles.  Think about how it smells while driving by Harris Ranch.  How about that times ten down the length of the Valley?  Yeah, my nineteenth-century self would not have been down with that.

So, its about time for dinner, then I've got an evening with Eric Foner planned.  Love me those Civil War historians....

The view from my room--STELLA!

Review of Rest for the Wicked by Naida West

While I miss the rigor of school, I do not miss the insistence of my instructors that I write with an academic style.  Because it is summertime and there is no Dr. Rose to tell me to write more formally, this review of Naida West's Rest for the Wicked will sound like the casual me, not the scholastic me.

A few years ago, my beloved beautician, Carol Huson, handed me a book called Eye of the Bear by Naida West.  I was immediately skeptical.  I don't much enjoy reading about Native Americans--too sad, too much (or too little) white-girl guilt, whatever.  But Carol raved about the book, and insisted that both she and her husband Bob had loved it.  And, after all, I was trying to be an historian with a California focus.  So, after Carol had colored and cut my hair, I took the book home and gave it a shot.

I was enthralled!  Eye of the Bear was an amazing read.  From the beginning, it was clear that West had a beautiful writing style, a deep knowledge and understanding of California's indigenous peoples, and a vivid imagination that enabled her to take her readers back in time.  The book was gritty and realistic enough, but the emphasis on native culture and the belief system within it spoke volumes to me. 

Carol insisted on having her book back after I had finished it (can you imagine?).  But I very much wanted a copy for my own, so I checked the usual places, Amazon.com and Barnes and Noble.com.  While the book could be had from used booksellers on both sites, the price was staggering.  Sadly, that seemed to be the end of my time with author Naida West.

Fast forward to this year's California State Fair and Exposition.  Coerced into attending by friends, I was resisting the temptation of cinnamon rolls when I came across an exhibit dedicated to California authors.  I wandered over, and at the first table I approached there were copies of Eye of the Bear.  Not only that, there were other books there by Naida West.  One in particular caught my eye--Rest for the Wicked, billed as a story set in the Sacramento region during the Gilded Age and Progressive Era.  As those are the time periods in U.S. history that most interest me, I decided then and there to spend some of my Fair money on the book.  I wish I could have purchased Eye of the Bear at the same time, but I am on a tight budget these days and had to resist. 

There was a woman seated behind the table, clearly there to sell the books.  In my enthusiasm (and I am very enthusiastic in moments like these), I began babbling all about how excited I was to see Eye of the Bear and to learn that the author had written other works.  "You liked it?" she asked, referring to Eye of the Bear.  "Oh, yeah," I babbled further.  "That's me," said the lady, now with a shy little smile. 

There I was, at the State Fair, meeting Naida West, the woman who had created Eye of the Bear!  Then the babbling really started.  She was a lovely woman, kind enough to talk with me about writing styles, about education, and more.  She graciously autographed my copy of Rest for the Wicked, and I stepped away to let her speak with other customers.  Well, "stepped" isn't exactly the right word.  I "floated" away from the table and back to my friends, who were now sticky with the remains of their cinnamon rolls. While I enjoyed the rest of my visit to the Fair and the company of friends and family, I was secretly chomping at the bit to get home and start reading.

Finally, on a Saturday morning, life settled into enough stillness that I took up Rest for the Wicked.  As it began with some of the very same elements that had enchanted me in Eye of the Bear, I was immediately hooked.  At over 600 pages, Rest for the Wicked took me four days to finish, but it was well worth it.

The main protagonist of Rest for the Wicked is Mae Duffy, a spoiled young girl who comes to California with her parents and brothers from Iowa in the early 1890's.  The family settles in the region around Sloughhouse and today's Rancho Murieta, rubbing elbows with familiar folks from that area's past, including the Sheldon and Miser families.  Sadly for Mae, her parents are completely unsuited for the challenges of starting a new life in a new place.  Mae soon strikes out on her own, leaving the Sierra foothills for life in the "big city" of Sacramento.

Mae's story then unfolds like a roller coaster, many dips and few climbs.  She is used and abused by men in Sacramento, including both a corrupt policeman and an ambitious political hack, but she also manages to meet many figures from Sacramento's past, including Hiram Johnson and Lincoln Steffens.  She even catches a glimpse of an aging Collis P. Huntington, by the 1890's the only member of the Big Four still alive.

New trials await Mae at every turn.  Even when she finds love, with half-Indian Billy McCoon, it ends in tragedy.  Mae's life, as imagined by Naida West, is filled with all the pain, dirt, nastiness, beauty, and splendor of real human existence at the close of the nineteenth century.  Nothing is held back, from a botched back alley abortion to the brutality of the railroad strike of 1894.  Yet Mae is resilient enough to grow and learn from her experiences, to open herself to new ways and new ideas, to find love again, and to eventually live a happy and contented life. 

The research Naida West must have done to complete Rest for the Wicked is amazing.  She made use of the usual secondary sources, but I can also spot her use of contemporary newspapers, city directories, census records and other sources common to genealogists, interviews with descendants of the real-life characters in the book, and much more.  This was fiction written by an historian, with all of the historian's drive for accuracy coupled with the novelist's flights of fancy.  If at times it seemed that West tried too hard to bring her fictional characters into contact with historical figures (i.e., the introduction of Butch Cassidy and Gertrude Stein), it was all in keeping with the way historical fiction is written.  Amitav Ghosh did the same thing when writing Sea of Poppies and River of Smoke.

For me, Rest for the Wicked brought to life the very historical period that I find so fascinating.  It was the time in which my great-grandparents were coming of age, marrying, starting their family, in Sacramento.  They were living through the same times as the fictional Mae Duffy, experiencing the same highs and lows of life.  West's meticulous research and spellbinding storytelling make me feel as though my own ancestors are just as accessible as the characters in her novel.

If you love a good piece of historical fiction, check out Rest for the Wicked and the other works of Naida West at http://www.bridgehousebooks.com/.  You won't be disappointed.