FORGOTTEN BOOK: HER DESERT LOVER: A LOVE STORY

 Her Desert Lover:  A Love Story by "Louisa Carter Lee" (Will F. Jenkins) (1925)

The first question I have is why the subtitle?  I think everyone could tell that this was a love story from the main title.  (That subtitle would be used on the other two romance novels published under the "Lee" pseudonym" -- all by Chelsea House, a publisher who evidently believes in hitting its readers over the head with the obvious.)

The subtitle is a good indication that this may be a bad book.  And it is.  Very bad.  Certainly not in the lusty, erotic sense that many romances of today are, but just overwritten and maudlin.  And yet I enjoyed it, in part because of its author, who, over a period of 60 years, published more than 1500 stories and articles, as well as over 60 novels and hundreds of film, radio, and television scripts.  I find Jenkins' work to be immensely readable, and this book is no exception.  I think you just have to approach the book in the right frame of mind.

Take a novel -- any novel -- and inject it with a lethal dose of saccharine.  Throw in as many illogical plot complications as Carter has liver pills.  Mix well (or, not so well) and you end up with a rushed and happy finale like the third act of an over-written melodrama.  Remember to avoid clearing up the one very minor, niggling plot point that has been bothering the reader throughout the book, and you have Her Desert Lover, a story which originally appeared in the long-running pulp magazine Love Story (along with nearly thirty others Jenkins had published under the "Lee" penname in the 1920s).

How saccharine can you get?  The hero, Philip Lane, a confirmed woman-hater, first views the unconscious heroine and calls her Lady Sunbeam because of her blonde hair; he continues to call her this even after finally learning her true name.  He instantly falls in love with the unknown, comatose beauty.  For her part, she calls him her Desert Lover, because he promises to take her away from all the terrible plot complications.  Keep in mind that the story is set in Westchester and the surrounding areas.  And, yes, after awakening, she falls instantly in love with him.  Love.  Overpowering, all-consuming LOVE.

Here's an example of the overwritten prose:

"There was a little silence, a silence fraught with a thousand, dear, unspoken things.  A bird, poised on a swinging rose brnch, trilled his very heart away.  A thousand beautiful blooms seemed to be sending prayers of fragrance heavenward.

"Philip Lane, moved by the impulse that had come into being as he held an unconscious human burden close to his heart two nights before, lifted Lady Sunbeam's fragile, fluttering, little white hand and touched it with his lips."

And:

"Then for a long, bossful moment all was forgotten, and the misery and torture of the last few days faded away, and they knew that just as they had tasted the dregs of misery, so now life was holding to their lips the cup of jpy which is only sipped by those whose hearts are brave and true"

To be followed by:

" 'Don't cry, dear girl.' replied Philip, kissing away each tear as it trickled down from her eyes.  'You have been so brave -- such a plucky girl, and all I ask is that you keep a stiff upper lip just a little while longer, and surely, somehow, we'll fight our way through all this terible tangle.' "

Did I mention that this is also a mystery novel, of sorts?  A unknown woman has been stabbed in the back of the head.  Naturally Lady Sumbeam is accused of the murder on the flimsiest of excuses, and needless alarums and excursions are encountered as a result .  It's interesting to note that the true murderer has been given an unshakable alibi, which was forgotten about (yet remained unshakable) at the book's end.

Critics Damon Knight and James Blish each accused the other of coming up with the term "idiot plot," in which a story's action can only progress because all the characters in the story are idiots.  I think that applies here.

And yet...

Yet...

I had a great time with this book, and not necessarily as a palate cleanser.  I gleefully and speedily tramped through the turgid prose and the endless complications, closing the book with a smug and satisfied smile.  Why?  Perhaps it was because it was written by one of my favorite authors (who could never do any wrong, IMHO).  Or, perhaps because my level of critical reading is the lowest of the low.  Or, more likely, because it was just so much fun.

Who knows?  You might enjoy this one, too.  Or you might curse me for thrusting this novel upon you.