American Dreamers
Charmian and Jack London
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- $10.99
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- $10.99
Publisher Description
Jack London's stories of adventure in the frozen landscapes of the Yukon and the steamy islands of the South Seas have captured the imaginations of readers all over the world. Born into the working class, London was a major force in the lively Socialist movement of his day. In 1903 he shocked the morals of his country when he left his wife and two young daughters for a spunky spinster five years his senior.
A new breed of woman, Charmian Kitteridge was notorious in the Bay area for daring to ride her horse astride and work in an office, unlike proper women of the day. As his "Mate-Woman," Charmian contributed to Jack's accomplishments -- she was his editor, transcriber, confidante, as well as the model for many of Jack's female characters. Together they overcame threats to their love that stemmed from Jack's alcoholism, infidelities, and illness.
This is a compelling portrait that challenges the long"Cheld view of London as a rough, hard-drinking womanizer, and of Charmian as a passive, childish dependent. Instead, this is a love story and a fascinating portrait of a couple whose courage, passion, and vitality remain a model of love fulfilled.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
In this revisionist, not entirely credible joint biography of the Londons, Stasz, who teaches at Sonoma University in California, draws on the novelist's writings as clues to his personality, challenging the popular concept of him as a manic, brutal alcoholic, and stressing his sensibility and humane qualities. Charmian, in a portrait based in large part on her diaries, emerges not only as the devoted lover, partner and literary model of a famous man, but as a distinct individual who shared Jack's three years of South Sea Island adventures, the inspiration of the Cruise of the Snark , and published two books of her own. She is shown also as sympathetic to his socialist politics and ranching interests. The author attributes the preoccupation with the spiritual in the novelist's later works to disillusion due to rancor and estrangement from his first wife and daughter, to material losses and to the physical ailments fostered by the alcoholism that led to his death in 1916 at age 39. Photos not seen by PW.
