Sparkletack - the San Francisco History Podcast

I read a lot of books about San Francisco and California history. And though these posts are labeled “book reviews”, the only books you’ll ever see here are those that I’ve really enjoyed — I’ve no urge to write about the stinkers! If you feel moved to seek out a copy for yourself, a click on any book image will lead you to an independent book seller. Read on…

An inordinate number of my youthful hours were spent in the company of the mystery novel; Agatha Christie, Dashiell Hammett, Dorothy L. Sayers … I couldn’t get enough. Somewhere along the line, though, the fixation faded …

But it’s back.

I’ve discovered a series of detective novels that — in a “you got chocolate on my peanut butter!” kind of way — seem to have been written with me in mind:The setting is 1890’s San Francisco, the lively heart of the Gilded Age. And the detective? None other than our own famously cynical wit-about-town, that brilliant literary misanthrope Mr. Ambrose “Bitter” Bierce.

See what I mean?

Just a minute: Ambrose who?

If the name of Bierce does not ring a bell, a lightning synopsis: after a distinguished but emotionally devastating Civil War military career, Bierce turned up (as so many do) in San Francisco. In the good company of other western literary upstarts (Sam Clemens springs to mind), Ambrose was published in a number of local journals (the Argonaut, the Wasp, etc), quickly earning notoriety for his black humour and caustic wit. “Bitter Bierce” was not one to suffer fools gladly, and was as quick with his tongue as with his pen.

When young Willy Hearst inherited the Examiner newspaper in 1887, one of his first acts was to hire the sardonic Bierce to write for the feisty rag. “Prattle”, as Bierce named his weekly column, gave the prodigiously talented Ambrose a platform from which to champion freedom and intellectual honesty — while tweaking the noses of those he judged hypocritical, vain, or corruptly powerful.

Bierce most famous work today is undoubtedly “The Devil’s Dictionary“, an arch tome featuring humorously barbed definitions of words that you only thought you understood:

BIRTH, n. The first and direst of all disasters.

MARRIAGE, n. The state or condition of a community consisting of a master, a mistress and two slaves, making in all, two.

DENTIST, n. A prestidigitator who, putting metal into your mouth, pulls coins out of your pocket.

POLITICS, n. A strife of interests masquerading as a contest of principles. The conduct of public affairs for private advantage.

DICTIONARY, n. A malevolent literary device for cramping the growth of a language and making it hard and inelastic. This dictionary, however, is a most useful work.

This larger-than-life American original vanished into Mexico in 1913, on a mission to join Pancho Villa’s revolutionary army … and was never heard from again.

Back to the books

It was a brilliant choice: Oakley Hall’s decision to install this curmudgeonly literary figure into not just one but two fields of genre writing (historical fiction / detective fiction) breathes new life into both.

The stories are revealed through the eyes of young reporter Tim Redmond*, who plays a sort of Watson to Ambrose Bierce’s sardonic Sherlock Holmes. Bierce’s principal tools of detection are his enormous intellect and scathing distrust of human nature, and each chapter begins with a definition from the “Devil’s Dictionary” appropriate to the nefarious activity to come.

In a daring departure from standard book review procedures, I’m not going to trouble you with the stories! Oh, the novels are plotted tightly enough, including plenty of action and the requisite twists and turns — they’re absorbing, intelligent, and often funny.

The true pleasures of these novels, however, are to be found in the generous inclusion of TRUCKLOADS of subtle period flavour and details. Oh, the details!

Historical fiction is a tricky business. In pursuit of accuracy, it’s all too easy to create work that’s bone-dry and textbook dull. At the other extreme are romance novels possessing even less authentic connection to their settings than they do literary merit!

Oakley has walked this dangerous path with apparent ease. His San Francisco is a gritty and very real place. The characters are natural without dropping into either period caricature or modern parody. The dialogue is crisp, peppered with sufficient Golden Age vocabulary to keep things real, without unnecessary distraction. Historical headlines and actual events are sewn neatly into the fabric of each storyline, serving to build character and advance the plot. In fact, my professional curiousity had me constantly dropping the novels to research his myriad references — did such-and-such person actually exist? Could that event have actually happened? Was that a legitimate newspaper article? The answer was almost invariably ‘yes’.

“Ambrose Bierce and the One-Eyed Jacks”

“One-Eyed Jacks” happened to be the first volume of Hall’s series that I picked up — here are a few of the very real characters woven into just one book: dashing young publisher William Hearst and his scandalous mistress Tessie Powers; Hearst’s mother Phoebe, fierce controller of the family fortune; Mammy Pleasant, voodoo priestess and powerful puller of strings; Annie Laurie, beloved and controversial red-headed proto-Gonzo journalist; and the list goes on. Chinese “Highbinder” assassins, the Portuguese colony in Sausalito, the bustling valley town of Sacramento, restaurants, music halls, opium dens, the Palace Hotel …

And there are four other books in Hall’s straight flush!

Oakley Hall, Literary Icon

I’d never heard of Mr. Hall before stumbling onto this series, but just a couple of pages were enough to suggest that this guy was no hack. His vivid evocation of the sights, sounds, and oft-disturbing odors of the old City plunges you right into its midst, and his mastery of plotting and dialogue I’ve already mentioned. The man is an artist.

It was only after finishing the first book, though, that I discovered that Oakley Hall was a major presence on the Western literary scene — something which I suspect drew him to Bierce in the first place, as a kind of kindred spirit.

I say “was” a presence, because he passed away just a month ago — in an unhappy coincidence, precisely while I was reading these books. Hall’s obituaries invariably describe him as a serious and gifted author, the inheritor of Wallace Stegner’s Western literary mantle.

From the San Francisco Chronicle — May 16, 2008:

“With the death of Oakley Hall on Monday, the Bay Area — and, by extension, the United States — lost one of its greatest champions of literature.

“Novelist, librettist, instructor and administrator, Hall, who lived a robust 87 years, maintained an influence much larger than his characteristic modesty would suggest. He wrote more than 20 books, nonfiction and fiction, many of which were revered in a hot-eyed, proselytizing way by fellow writers who saw in Hall’s work a complete command of the craft. His fifth novel, “Warlock,” for instance, a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in fiction in 1958, earned the pulpit-pounding praise of Thomas Pynchon, who called it “one of our best American novels.”

“Hall helped set up not one but two literary institutions - the writing program at UC Irvine, where he was the director for 20 years, and the Squaw Valley Community of Writers, which he co-founded in 1969 — whose alumni (Michael Chabon, Richard Ford, et. al.) have seen their work land on the pages of top magazines, glide their way up national best-seller lists and pocket such honors as the Pulitzer.”

Should you read them?

If you’ve been paying attention, you already know the answer.

Oakley Hall’s five-volume Ambrose Bierce series represents the small foray of a literary giant into genre fiction, and frankly, it’s a lucky break for us that he decided to go slumming. I can’t recommend these books highly enough.

Read ‘em … you won’t regret it. Check at your local independent bookstore, or click to order your own copy from Powells Books online. (books listed in chronological order)

• Queen of Spades
• Death of Kings
• One-Eyed Jacks
• Trey of Pearls
• Ace of Shoots

I read a lot of books on San Francisco and California history. And though these posts are labeled “book reviews”, the only books you’ll ever see here are those that I’ve really enjoyed. In short, if you see it here, it’s a great book — I’ve no urge to write about the stinkers! And if you feel moved to seek out a copy for yourself, a click on the image of the book below will lead you to an independent book seller. Read on…

An email from a Tennessee book publisher plopped into my inbox a few weeks ago, trying to whip up interest in a coffee table book about historical Paris. I found this mildly interesting, but was about to write it off as spam when my eye fell on the last paragraph. Almost a throwaway, it mentioned Rebecca Schall’s previous book, “Historic Photos of San Francisco”. I perked right up, and then read the following:

“We’d love to send you a complimentary copy for possible review consideration”.

Yes, please!

As noted above, my policy in doing book reviews is that if it sucks, my review will consist of pointed disregard.

Was that ever NOT the case here. I (literally) jumped up and down as I flipped through the pages of this 200+ page treasure chest. This book is fantastic — nothing but fun!

It’s organized into several sections, each introduced with carefully composed scene-setting text, but I must confess — I have yet to read a word of it. Ahem — allow me to direct your attention once again to the title: “Historic Photos of San Francisco”. That’s it — photos. Barrels full. Rare photos and old favourites, culled from archives all around the Bay Area. I’m telling you, this book is loaded.

Historical photos!

I’m going to open the volume at random, and just drop a few of these gems on you:

page 9: For my money this is the best shot of San Francisco’s old shoreline, now long-buried underneath the Financial District. You’re seeing the northwest corner of today’s Broadway and (the then aptly-named) Front Streets, with Telegraph Hill in the background. (1865)

page 18: The San Francisco Police Department’s notorious Chinatown Squad, formed to combat opium dens, gambling halls, brothels, etc. Note the sledgehammers! (1895)

page 21: Elegantly dressed family on Bush Street, no doubt enroute to one of San Francisco’s myriad downtown theatres. (1877)

page 153: The cable car turnaround at Powell and Market — years before the City turned Powell into a cul-de-sac. (1945)

And there’s so much more. A shot of a captured Japanese midget submarine being “exorcised” by a Chinese priest. Electric streetcars plowing through flooded streets. Wreckage from the 1906 Great Fire and Earthquake. An aerial shot of Ocean Beach, featuring windmills and a sparsely settled Sunset District. The opening of the Lefty O’Doul drawbridge. Rocky Marciano boxing at Kezar Stadium.

There are lots of high-profile historical events represented here, but the street scenes are my favourites — the accidental capturing-in-amber of average Joe and Josephine San Francisco just going about their business.

Whatever your pleasure, it’s probably here in glorious and crisply detailed black and white — each photo dated, documented, and nicely put into context. There are other books in the category of “cool shots of the old city”, but if you’re looking for instant transportation to every decade of San Francisco’s history, give this one a look.

Meet the author

If you enjoy it as much as I did, drop by Rebecca Schall’s book signing. Though born in San Francisco, she now lives in Paris, so it’s a rare-ish event. It’s at a place I normally don’t set foot in, a chain store in the more touristed part of town — but what the heck: June 14th, 3pm at the Fisherman’s Wharf Barnes & Noble.

Tell her Sparkletack sent you.

Click here to order from an independent online bookstore.

I read a lot of books on San Francisco and California history. And though these posts are labeled “book reviews”, the only books you’ll ever see here are those that I’ve really enjoyed. In short, if you see it here, it’s a great book — I’ve no urge to write about the stinkers! And if you feel moved to seek out a copy for yourself, a click on the image of the book below will lead you to an independent book seller. Read on…

This odd little tale was brought to my attention by a listener who could not believe that I hadn’t mentioned it in my podcast about Robert Louis Stevenson.

Of course I hadn’t mentioned it because I’d never heard of it. In fact, I’d never read a single line of Stevenson’s short fiction, but with my listener’s promise that it was “spectacularly weird and wonderful”, I trundled off to the library to dig it up.

Boy did that trip ever pay off. The story actually was spectacularly weird — and impossible to put down. I read the entire (very short) book on my feet, unwilling to interrupt the flow by searching for a chair.

My reader — okay, he does have a name — “Scott” had been surprised at the absence of this tale from my podcast. Though most of the action takes place in the Kingdom of Hawaii, the bizarre little fable actually begins among the mansions of San Francisco’s Nob Hill. I hesitate to delve too deeply into the plot — I’d hate to spoil it for you — but a brief synopsis is probably in order:

The Story

Keawe, a young kanaka (as native Hawaiians were known in those days), shows up in San Francisco and buys a strange little bottle from a wealthy, sad-eyed gentleman. A hideous imp trapped inside the bottle has the power to grant every wish and desire of whoever owns it. True to the tale’s fairytale form, though, there’s a devilishly clever catch — why else would the gentleman wish to sell the article responsible for his vast fortune? The bottle must always be sold for less than the price it was purchased for. It may not be thrown or given away - a proposition which Keawe carefully tests — and if the owner dies without having sold it, “he must burn in hell for ever.”

The bottle was said to have been brought to Earth by the Devil and first purchased by Prester John for millions of dollars; as it passed from hand to hand, the price always decreasing, the imp brought fame, fortune and power to men like Napoleon and Captain James Cook. At the beginning of Stevenson’s tale the price has diminished to a mere eighty dollars, and by the end, well — this provides the crux of the Keawe’s dilemma.

It’s a great story, but San Francisco makes only a brief appearance. As Keawe wanders up from the port in the first pages, he looks around him and observes,

“This is a fine town, with a fine harbour, and rich people uncountable; and in particular, there is one hill which is covered with palaces. What fine houses these are! And how happy must those people be who dwell in them, and take no care for the morrow!”

Robert Louis Stevenson

Robert Louis Stevenson is best known for adventure novels like Treasure Island and Kidnapped, but he was a master of horror and the supernatural as well … in his own words, “engaged darkly with an ink bottle.” As an example The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde springs quickly to mind, but short stories such as Markheim and The Body Snatcher also illustrate his ongoing fascination with the subject.

The Nob Hill setting of the first chapter comes from Stevenson’s own San Francisco experience. He lived at a boardinghouse on Bush Street from 1879-80, but — as detailed in “Chinatown Treasure” — he had a propensity for avoiding the Nabobs on the hill. Instead, he spent his time with outsiders — the immigrants of Chinatown. The choosing of a working class non-white for the role of protagonist in the “The Bottle Imp” was no coincidence.

I read a lot of books on San Francisco and California history. And though these posts are labeled “book reviews”, the only books you’ll ever see here are those that I’ve really enjoyed. In short, if you see it here, it’s a great book — I’ve no urge to write about the stinkers! And if you feel moved to seek out a copy for yourself, a click on the image of the book below leads to the website of the independent book seller nearest you. Read on…

“When I was a boy they built an island in the center of San Francisco Bay that was the capsule of my dreams. It was a peaceable island, crowned with towers and glittering with light, that seemed to float like a vision in a sea of gold — an earthly paradise where boys could feast on buttered scones and fried potatoes and the world was flat”

Thus begins Richard Reinhardt’s delightful and beautifully written memoir/history “Treasure Island; San Francisco’s Exposition Years”. As I plowed through piles of material while researching the Treasure Island podcasts, this book leapt out at me, outshining its fellow tomes like a diamond in a dustbin. There’s a blend of lively nostalgia, serious research, and generous helpings of vintage black and white photographs which make for the most inviting and readable history of Treasure Island that I’ve ever come across.

Reinhardt was a small boy living in a quiet Oakland neighborhood when the Great Depression struck, and the advent of Treasure Island was the greatest event of his young life. His writing is unapologetically filtered through these vivid and happy childhood memories, which makes every page a joy.

I read a lot of books on San Francisco and California history. And though these posts are labeled “book reviews”, the only books you’ll ever see here are those that I’ve really enjoyed. In short, if you see it here, it’s a great book — I’ve no urge to write about the stinkers! And if you feel moved to seek out a copy for yourself, a click on the image of the book below leads to the website of the independent book seller nearest you. Read on…

The San Francisco Almanac is good. By which I mean “there’s a ridiculous amount of information here, and watch out — it may prove addictive”. This thing is so rich that I almost hesitate to expose it to the general public, in case it escalates your already debilitating obsession with San Francisciana!

Where has this been all my life?

But enough gushing. You probably already know author Gladys Hansen through the Virtual Museum of San Francisco, or through her work on the Great Register, the quest to identify the uncounted victims of the 1906 earthquake and fire.

The subtitle of the San Francisco Almanac is “Everything You Wanted to Know About Everyone’s Favorite City”, and that pretty much describes it. An almanac is, according to the dictionary, “a reference book of useful and interesting facts”, and this is nothing less than an attempt to cram every fact about San Francisco on record into a single small volume.

I read a lot of books on San Francisco and California history. And though these posts are labeled “book reviews”, the only books you’ll ever see here are those that I’ve really enjoyed. In short, if you see it here, it’s a great book — I’ve no urge to write about the stinkers! And if you feel moved to seek out a copy for yourself, a click on the image of the book below leads to the website of the independent book seller nearest you. Read on…

Is one allowed to begin a book review with a quote from another book review? A line from the New York Times is printed right on the cover of River of Shadows: “Brilliant … Never less than deeply intelligent, and often very close to inspired”.

“River of Shadows” traces the life and spasmodic career of photographer Eadweard Muybridge, probably most famous for the groundbreaking photographic motion studies of the 1870s. The holy grail of Victorian darkroom alchemists was, at least photographically speaking, to successfully freeze motion onto a chemical plate. Sponsored by wealthy equestrian (and railroad robber baron) Leland Stanford, Muybridge proved decisively that a racing horse’s feet do simultaneously leave the ground — and put the lie to centuries of painterly attempts at realism.

But this ambitious work is far, far more than a simple biography. It’s true subject is, in the stock phrase of the day, the “annihilation of time and space” — the technological transformation of not only the American west, but of the world. San Franciscan Rebecca Solnit paints a vivid, poetic, and meticulously detailed picture of the ferment and excitement of the Victorian technological revolution… and Muybridge’s part in precipitating the inexorable advance of our highly accelerated and regulated modern way of life.

The odd (and possibly brain-injured) life of Eadweard Muybridge provides the main thread of the work, but Solnit does not miss an opportunity to follow other fascinating fragments of the Western drama: Charles Darwin, Emperor Norton, John Muir, Yosemite, Thomas Edison, the “Ghost Dance” of the Modoc War, even George Takei… you begin to flip the pages more and more quickly, wondering what unexpectedly compelling intersection will be uncovered on the next. The photographer’s experiments with image, time and speed lead to him personal glory, heartbreak, and even murder on the way to becoming the godfather of those two most influential “California” institutions: Hollywood and Silicon Valley.

Filled with striking and poetic images, this book manages to combine literary aspirations and scholarly accuracy in a way which unexpectedly results in a real page-turner… there are few in its class. And what’s more, it was handed to me by my friend Paul with the words, “I thought of you the whole time I read it” — nothing like that to prick up one’s ears. And I think you’ll like it too.

Click here to order from an independent online bookstore.

I read a lot of books on San Francisco and California history. And though these posts are labeled “book reviews”, the only books you’ll ever see here are those that I’ve really enjoyed. In short, if you see it here, it’s a great book — I’ve no urge to write about the stinkers! And if you feel moved to seek out a copy for yourself, a click on the image of the book below leads to the website of the independent book seller nearest you. Read on…

I spent a few evenings this week re-reading Sam Clemens’ rough and ready review of his early experiences in the Wild West, just to see how it would hold up to my memories of it. And to tell you the truth, I enjoyed it even more.

The beauty of this book is two-fold: it’s a work in which you can see the voice of the glimpse of life on the frontier written by a man who experienced it as a wide-eyed and enthusiastic youth — but also a work in which one sees the development of an authentic American voice.

The memoir — for that’s more or less what it is — covers the years between 1861, when young Sam joins his brother on a journey to his appointment as the secretary to the governor of the Nevada Territory, to his eventual voyage to the recently subdued Hawaiian islands in 1866. During this span young Sam meets bandits, Pony Express riders, indians and Mormons; tries his hand and fails at dozens of occupations; becomes the untutored editor of a newspaper, burns down half a mountain range; is nearly drowned, crushed, and frozen to death; throws himself into mining and even becomes a millionaire, though only for two weeks — and does not miss an opportunity to poke fun at the “new western man” and his own callow youth.

It’s a novelistic account, by which I don’t mean that it’s organized and disciplined into some kind of strict and narrow structure — it is in fact sprawling and haphazardly organized — but that it isn’t, per se, a “factual account” of Sam Clemens experiences in the West. He’s created a fictionalized version of himself to deliver these reminiscinces, and though Sam was in all these places and met all (or most) of the characters involved, he exaggerates, embroiders and inflates from the opening pages to the final period. Not that there’s any intent of trickery — he’s writing with a broad wink. In fact, when he wants to impress upon the reader the actual truth of a thing, he pulls aside the veil of exaggeration and tells him so.

I can’t say that the entire work is a success; some of Sam’s digressions (he has no fear of stepping out of the timeline to recite an anecdote about a camel he met in the Holy Land, or to deliver a screed about the failings of the jury system) are distracting; some of the humourous set pieces fail to gel, but I often laughed out loud, and found many passages so deliciously composed, so gorgeous or hilarious that I discovered myself constantly interrupting my lady friend and reading aloud.

Ernest Hemingway famously wrote that all modern American literature was inspired by Clemen’s writing, and the dry wit, droll rhythms and sheer enjoyment of the new American vernacular spring fresh from every page. I may be prejudiced in favor of anything Sam writes, and even more likely when it has to do with his life in the West. Where the mention of his pseudonym “Mark Twain” automatically evokes the Mississippi, riverboats and Huck Finn in others, for me it’s the wild west — I’m convinced that the authentic voice of the man was forged out here, and the opportunity to peek over his shoulder and live it along with him is absolutely priceless.

Click here to order from an independent online bookstore.