A
Genre: Historical: American, Romance
The book Calico Palace is a romance/historical novel/adventure story that brings the California Gold Rush to vivid life with wonderful characters, a robust sense of humor, some harrowing tragedy (the Gold Rush was not a place for wimps), and a strong message of the importance of building your own family, being emotionally hardy, and seizing the life you want in a forthright way. It’s a powerfully feminist book and while some of the romance comes out of nowhere, it contains one of the best descriptions of love that I’ve ever heard.
Like many historical novels, the plot of Calico Palace involves multiple twists and turns and I don’t want to spoil them too much. The main character is Kendra, a young woman who has been raised quite properly in boarding schools in New York. When Kendra’s mother moves to San Francisco with her husband, an Army man, Kendra comes along. Before she knows it, she’s fallen madly in love with Ted, who is charming, sexy, and admires her thirst for adventure. They have a whirlwind courtship and are off to the gold fields. Their travelling companions include Ning, the leader of the group; Pocket, a gentle man of few vices, which confuses the hell out of Marny, a shrewed woman with a checkered past and present. Then there’s Hiram, a huge guy with a beard who is ferociously loyal; plus Marny and Delbert. Marny is heading out to set up a gambling house and Delbert is her business partner and lover.
There’s a lot of romance in this book, but it focuses much more on friendship than on romance. Men and women have platonic friendships, and the friendship between Marny and Kendra is at the center of the book. Sometimes they spend tons of time together and sometimes little, but they are always there for each other. The friendship between Pocket, Hiram, Marny, and Kendra remains constant regardless of who is sleeping with whom (Marny is something of a serial monogamist, finding lovers who are willing to bankroll her enterprises for some special benefits, which she very much enjoys since she selects partners who are good-looking as well as rich) and whether the characters are experiencing delight and disaster.
I don’t want to spoil too much, but I will say that it’s fascinating from a historical aspect. I live in the heart of Gold Rush country. When you grow up here, you go through certain rituals in elementary school, like visiting Sutter’s Fort and learning about the Donner Party and panning for “gold” in Old Town. Then I had my daughter and I did it all over again (in costume, natch – and I was sick that day so I told everyone I had cholera). I’m not a Gold Rush scholar, but I know enough to say that this book gets a lot of stuff right. In the book, as in history, San Francisco is under constant threat from fire, and when it’s not on fire it’s buried by mud. The biggest danger to travellers and settlers is disease and infection. And the real money in the Gold Rush doesn’t come from finding gold – it comes from selling food and mining supplies, renting out lodgings, speculating in steamship tickets, and yeah, lots of gambling. The book’s only misstep is that it presents a very white set of characters whereas in the actual Gold Rush California was amazingly racially and ethnically diverse.
Every time I review a classic, I run headlong into some kind of prejudice and have to issue a trigger warning/disclaimer. In this book, there is a fairly brief section in which our heroes encounter a group of California Native Americans who live near a trading post. Let’s just say that our heroes do not think highly of Native Americans, especially the ones that hang out near trading posts (although they do think highly of the Plains Indians, who had a very different culture than that of the California Indians). I find the book palatable despite this ugly aspect for the following reasons:
1) The book is told from Kendra’s point of view and frankly someone of Kendra’s class, background, and experience probably would have felt exactly that way about Native Americans. I am sad that there is no character who stands up for them, or a moment in which Kendra changes her mind since she is a person who is capable of great emotional growth. However, I have to grant that Kendra’s first reaction probably would be less than complementary given her background and circumstances.
2). The passage is brief so I can enjoy most of the book while loathing that one small part. My personal approach with older books is to take the racism that inevitably appears as a learning opportunity – it helps me understand my past and reminds me to continue to challenge myself in the present. However, I am approaching the books from a level of privilege that makes it possible for me to compartmentalize and I understand that this approach is neither necessary, possible, nor desirable for many readers.
As far as racism goes, this is the most benign book by Gwen Bristow that I’ve read. Her book Jubilee Trail (her biggest seller) is basically the exact same book as Calico Palace, with the same characters, but with more time on the trail and involving in life on a cattle farm and in Los Angeles instead of life in San Francisco. More time on the trail means more encounters with Native Americans and thus a greater quantity of racism. She also has several books set in a Southern plantation before the Civil War. I started to read one of them and fled in horror around chapter two (I can’t recall which book it was, but I believe it was the first one in the Plantation Trilogy, Deep Summer.)
This book may not be progressive in terms of race, but it’s feminist as all get out. A primary theme in the book is that The Gold Rush gave people the opportunity to escape from roles proscribed by society. Men and women alike are praised by the author for pursuing their dreams, and no sin is greater than slut-shaming. Both of the women in the story find true love, and that’s portrayed as important, but it’s just as important for the men in the story. Not all women are portrayed as wanting children, not all women are portrayed as wanting a domestic life, and neither those who do (Kendra) nor those that don’t (Marny) are judged for their choices.
Early on, Kendra assumes that Marny has taken to life as a fallen woman because of abuse or abandonment – but it turns out that Marny chose her life of her own free will, because she liked the freedom and the money. To which Kendra (who at this point in the story is still quite proper but getting looser by the minute) says:
“Marny, I like you better than if you were the kind of mistreated girl I thought you were. You knew what you wanted to do and you did it, all the way. I don’t like halfway people. I like people who have courage.”
“Thank you, dear,” said Marny. “If you mean guts, why don’t you say so?”
“Guts,” said Kendra.
This passage is basically the core of the whole book. The book contains enormous amounts of heart, but it’s really about guts. A character like Ted wants to be free, but he lacks the work ethic and the guts to make a go of it, and he leaves a trail of damage in his wake. He’s not free; he’s trapped by his own shiftlessness. Kendra and Marny pursue different kinds of lives, but they both work their asses off every single day so that they can live the lives of their choosing without hurting other people. The book values both independence (all the heroic characters want to make their own way and “not be a burden”) and interdependence (none of the characters would really be able to make a go of it without teamwork and mutual support). More than anything else, the book suggests that the key to a happy life is to know what kind of life you want and go after it in the most honest way you can. With guts.
The idea that you can choose who you want to be and what you want to do extends to the romances. As Kendra matures, she comes to value honesty and commitment as much as the mad lust she feels for Ted. While the HEAs for Kendra and Marny come a bit out of left field at the end, they come with some damn fine statements about appreciating the person you love for who they are.
Because I don’t want to spoil anything, I won’t tell you who says this line, and to whom, but I will say that this is one of my favorite quotes about romance ever:
I’ve heard a lot of people talk about love. But they don’t seem to mean what I mean. They say, ‘Because I love you, you must do what I want you to do.’ That’s not what I mean at all. What I mean is, because I love you, I want you to do what you want to do…I don’t want to change one thing about you. I don’t want you to be like me. I want you to be like you.”
Beautiful. I adore this book with a couple of caveats that are pretty standard for the time period it’s describing (1848 – 1850) and the time period it was published in (1970, when the author was almost 70 years old). It’s fun, it’s by turns tearjerking and hilarious, it’s feminist, it’s romantic, and it describes a crazy time in history with a lot of excitement, some glamour, and a great deal of grit.
And, of course, guts.
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Thanks!
Great review. I love this book and it would be on my list of 10 books a romance reader should read in their lifetime. I do know who the quote belongs to and is a perfect declaration of love to convince the hesitant person the words are directed to. Thanks for reviewing this classic.
Thank you for the great review. I read all of Bristow’s books back in the ’60s and bought this one new (and in hardback!)when it came out. I haven’t re-read it in years, as my copy went AWOL. Hmmm, library here I come…
pssst–one amusing typo caught my eye–‘shrewed’ for, I assume, ‘shrewd’–as I don’t recall any of the women beset or bedecked with shrews(the small furry critters).
I read all of the Bristow books back in the day, and loved them. I will be watching for a sale price on the ebooks, for sure.
Carrie, I also loved Calico Palace and Jubilee Trail and fled after a couple of chapters of Deep Summer, but my favorite is Celia Garth. It is set in Charleston during the revolution and, in the background, tells the tale of Frances Marion, the Swamp Fox.
Reading about Marny reminds me of a question I’ve had for a long time. What did women do to prevent pregnancy? I remember reading a LaVryle Spencer many years ago, can’t remember the title, but Our heroine had a black sheep of an aunt who traveled the world and took lovers. Believe it was set in the late 19th century. The aunt used a copper penny to prevent conception. I remember wondering if this was effective and, if so, why wasn’t it generally known?
There were condoms made of sheep gut (like a sausage casing).
Also, women could insert a bit of sponge, which doesn’t work great but is better than nothing.
Sponge soaked in alcohol or vinegar is even better, or so they used to think. Pennyroyal tea was also used, but as an abortifacient.
After around 1840 or so, condoms a made from vulanized rubber were in vogue. In the 1860’s, one could purchase a cervical cap known as a “womb veil”, but of course that is slightly after the events of Calico Palace. Abortions were illegal but one could procure many herbal concoctions that were advertised “To bring on a period”. I suspect Marny used the sponge technique with her more long-term relationships, but that’s pure speculation on my part.
I remember in those Clan of the Cave Bear books Ayla drank an herbal tea every morning to prevent pregnancy. I remember thinking then, if there really had been such a tea, how is it that women didn’t pass that secret on to each other over the millennia.
I remember reading this book decades ago and reading the review brought it back to me. It’s a KU title… ZING!
Thank you for that wonderfully written review which was itself as much an essay about love, and shiftless men, as it was a book review.
@Holly– OMG, “Celia Garth”! I loved that book!! (runs off to add another title to the library list…)
I had a thing for Francis Marion, thanks to the 1959-60 Disney mini-series starring a young and handsome Leslie Nielson. Imagine my surprise when I later discovered that the real ‘Swamp Fox’ was of average height, if not a bit shorter, and dark haired!
Lovely review. Has convinced me to search for and buy this title. Thanks.
My grandmother aborted herself several times by drinking quinine.
I remember a real Old-Skool by Barbara Ferry Johnson The Heirs of Love where the main character was warned against another pregnancy and her doctor introduced her husband to lambskin condoms. The husband was so impressed that he started distributing them throughout France as part of his import/export business.
Thank you so much for this trip down my adolescent memory lane. I so loved this book and more so, Jubillee Trail when I read them in junior high. They were my first “adult” books after gradiuating from Nancy Drew, Walt Morey and Tixie Belden. I loved JT so much at the time, (8th grade – compete with all the pre-pubescent drama),I named my guinea pigs Garnet & Florinda and to this day, still say “Helll for breakfast” as a swear word. Thank you!
Yes, I remember this book fondly. My Omi gave me the book to read when I was a child, along with two others by Bristow. What I remember most vividly is the wonderful friendship between the two women and how they make a family along with the awesome men in their circle.
I loved this book when I was a kid, and recently rediscovered it on Amazon Kindle. I was surprised, really, at how well it held up to re-reading more than 40 years later. At the time I originally read it, I had no idea how unusual it was to find a “romance” book with strong women characters like Marnie and Kendra.
According to my gynecologist, withdrawal is approximately 80% effective in preventing pregnancy. (Way higher than I would have thought.) She said a lot of married couples use it as a conscious contraceptive choice.
I did an essay on the floral symbolism in Hamlet for us English and many of the herbs Ophelia talks about were emmenagogues (implying that she may have been unwantedly pregnant).
*hs English
@Gloriamarie I believe copper changes the pH balance to make the environment less hospitable to sperm. Many IUDs are copper for that reason.
Mary, presumably Ophelia was preggers via Hamlet.
About coitus interrputus, there is a priceless line in, I think, Drums of Autumn, when Brianna follows Roger Wakefield into the past. She and Roger do the deed and he pulls out in an attempt to protect Brianna from pregnancy. Brianna tells her mother this.
Clare says something like “There is a word for people who practice coitus interruptus.” Brianna wonders what that would be and Clare answers, “Parents.”
If a copper penny is really that effective, then it is shame more women didn’t know about it.
@Gloriamarie, yes I feel that was the implication in Hamletas well.
I was really surprised that withdrawal was considered that effective. Personally it would feel nervewracking for me to use that unless I was ok with the possibility of getting pregnant (of course there is always a possibility, to greater or lesser extents). My understanding from what she said was it was more used by married couples when they weren’t totally averse to potentially having more children. I would think there would need to be a lot of trust involved also.
I don’t know about the efficacy of just a copper penny; maybe it would depend on frequency/timing of use? Also, it would need to be an older penny (ew :/) since the ones now I think are alloys. Still, would be an interesting addition to the contraception carousel!
I guess if people didn’t have acess to anything else or were ignorant of other means, they used coitus interrputus. Just think of the mess. Sex is messy enough, unless he wears a condom.
As for the copper penny, the LaVryle Spencer novel I read was set in the mid-late 19th century and I am certain the pennies were pure copper back then.
Bringing up some good memories here. I loved Celia Garth when I was a teen. So any good books when I was young and foolish and ignorant. Some I’ve revisited, and some I leave preserved in the amber of the years.
Sorry – but nerd is gritting my teeth and can’t self-edit (b/c women need facts and control over our bodies, not smoke and mirrors).
80% effective = 20% failure, no?
And “80% effective” – in what context? In any one encounter, there is only a 20% chance of pregnancy? That’s bad, bad, bad odds. It means I’m more likely to get pregnant than roll a 6 – so I don’t think that’s what the gynecologist meant. At least I hope not.
Presuming it’s in a year of sex – then 20% of people WILL BE PREGNANT. And that’s one in five. So I hope a gynecologist who says withdrawal is 80% effective has a good grasp of probability/math, and can explain what that actually means to patients – because leading people to believe “oh, that’s 80% effective” without context or explanation is misleading. People tend to overinflate what big numbers mean and think that number is much less risk of pregnancy than it is.
“20% failure/ 1 in 5 have pregnancies” sounds remarkably different psychologically than “80% effective”.
Cannot agree more with Anna’s reframing. Withdrawal has a high failure rate. I’m a doc, and this is not an abstract issue. Too many of teens fail to understand the statistic (“it’s effective” is what they hear) and end up pregnant.
I’m not reading this book (or anything by Bristow, based on the description here). What does it matter that it’s historically accurate or that the book is feminist? It’s racist. I read romance for fun, and racism is not fun and is not entertaining. There are so many great, non-racist feminist romances to read instead: His Road Home; Trade Me and Talk Sweetly to Me (non-racist historical by Courtney Milan); Treasure by Rebekah Weatherspoon (I can’t wait to start the Fit trilogy); and A Bollywood Affair by Sonali Dev, to name a few.
@Anna It is not a method I feel comfortable using, but that was the statistic she quoted when discussing percentages/efficacy of different types of birth control. She was not specifically encouraging me to use it, just answering general questions. I was surprised that the number was even as high as it is. Even condoms in some statistics have an 89% effectiveness rate when accounting for human error. I agree that there are other more surefire contraceptives to use and I did feel she informed me very well on the spectrum of them.
@Kay – I totally respect your decision not to read this book. All the books you suggest are among my absolute favorites. They also all fairly recent books. Calico Palace is old enough (barely) that I consider it to fit into the “Classic” range. I enjoy reading older books (often much, much older books) for a variety of reasons but they are, by definition, from an earlier age and I find that I always have to address racism in the books even if only in the form of erasure (I also have to tackle sexism and classism most of the time). Rather than gloss over the racism I prefer to address it hands on and deal with it as an opportunity to examine old mores – I find it helps me understand our current time better, and I find that it helps me question and confront our current mores more effectively. Race is not central to the book, but whenever it shows up I want to tackle it head on so that readers will not stumble on it unawares. For readers who like to stick to new releases, all the books you suggest are exemplary.
Carrie S wrote “I find it helps me understand our current time better, and I find that it helps me question and confront our current mores more effectively.”
I’ve been saying for years that a person or a nation doesn’t know who or what it is today unless that person or nation knows where it comes from.
All Too Sadly, racism and sexism were givens in the USA’s culture and society. It was engrained and I often stumble upon it in older books. It troubles me every time so I appreciate Carrie S pointing it out.
I agree with Carrie S, it needs to be confronted when it shows up as, indeed, all forms of bigotry and discrimination must be confronted whenever wherever we find it.
As some may know, I am a Christian and Jesus tells me to “love my neighbor as myself.” When he said those words, there were no exceptions cited nor did it come with footnotes. Just a period to indicate end of sentence, end of discussion.
Racism, sexism, bigotry, and discrimination are examples of what loving one’s neighbor does not look like. They are exampples of the opposite.
Just to be clear, I also write about racism in older books specifically so that some people can say, “Oh, now I know what to avoid.” This is extends to everyone, of course, but in particular I want to give people of color (or other affected groups, since the classics bring up a variety of issues) a heads-up when a book might be trigger for them – there are plenty of readers who have to battle racism in their daily lives every day and who don’t necessarily need a history lesson on it – certainly not in the guise of what’s marketed as light and pleasurable reading.
This book was one of my favorites in college. I still have my copy somewhere. It was also a big influence on me as the women in it were so strong. They did what they wanted to do. It was great. Loved Marny. Thanks for reviewing it. (Someday, I may make a list of my media models of strong women who got me through college and med school in the ’70’s – this book would be on my list.)
@CarrieS
I appreciate that you addressed racism in this review (and other kinds of prejudice in prior reviews of older books) and that you acknowledge it isn’t something that everyone can/will compartmentalize. SBTB has also been a great resource for books by and about women of color. I like all kinds of books, but a non-pink, non-white girl can only read about so many raspberry-colored nipples decorating perfect snowy breasts before developing a complex.
For me, racism in romance isn’t a trigger, per se. It’s more that I feel deeply disappointed. I otherwise find that a lot of romance is progressive in its celebration of female sexuality, sex, and gender role reversal. So it stings even more when a writer is or leans towards feminist and then betrays the non-white sisterhood. (Charlotte Bronte, I’m looking at you.)
I’m thrilled to see so many Celia Garth fans – as best as I can remember, as it’s been ::mumble-mumble:: years ago, that was my introduction to the fascinating and wonderful world of ROMANCE. And began a life long love for Charleston, SC. Now to find a copy at my library to relive my teenage years…
Like others, I’ve happily rediscovered Calico Palace. But my very foggy memory thought there was a discussion between Kendra and Marny about contraception. I didn’t find that exchange in the edition now published in 2010. Am I imagining that conversation or was it deleted from the original publication? Thanks.
Yes, Calico Palace is wonderful, it’s romantic, feminist and hilarious. It is also my favorite Gwen Bristow book. Marny and Kendra are such nice ladies.
I love “Calico Palace.” I live in the SF area so I’m reminded of it all the time. But if you want a real tear-jerker, then I recommend Bristow’s “Tomorrow is Forever.” I’m tearing up just thinking about it!
I don’t understand this ‘what horror! it’s racist!’ or sexist or cassist or any other ‘-ism’ you can think of. When you read older books you will invariably stumble across one or the other, sometimes everyone at once. It’s not that those writers were ‘bad’ people, they were just reflecting the mores of their times. If you read even older books you’ll find writers sincerely believing in witchcraft and stuff. They were not dumb, it’s again reflecting the believes of their time. And that is exactly what I find interesting about older books. I don’t expect people from before my time to think and believe the same things we think and believe today.