Recent Reviews
The Bohemians by Jasmin Darznik
This review was published in the San Francisco Examiner on April 11, 2021.
We all struggle to see other people. Distraction, fear, prejudice, and apathy blind us. But every so often, someone brings strangers into sharper focus, and we are able to really see them. In her new novel ‘The Bohemians,’ Jasmin Darznik has written a compelling story about the legendary photographer Dorothea Lange. Darznik imagines how Lange refined her skills in 1920s San Francisco and went on to create piercing, iconic images of powerless people enduring the hardships of the Great Depression. Her photographs helped Americans, in that perilous time, to see each other in a new way.
The novel begins in 1918 when twenty-three-year-old Lange arrives in San Francisco from the East Coast. Afflicted by polio as a child, Lange develops a deep sense of empathy toward others. She also learns to pay attention to what she sees around her. These traits serve her well as she cultivates her craft as a photographer. Once in San Francisco, Lange dreams of opening a portrait studio. Her talent becomes well known, but financial backing for women is scarce. Indefatigable, she eventually strikes a deal with a businessman who loans her money. She opens her studio a block off Union Square and befriends a group of Bohemians that include other respected women photographers. These non-conforming writers, musicians and artists widen the lens of Lange’s evolving social consciousness.
Around her, diverse social forces are competing for power in San Francisco. At the bottom of the social structure are Chinese Americans. Laws restrict where Chinese Americans can live and work. Lange employs a Chinese assistant in her studio. (This woman is known to history only as “Ah-yee” or “Chinese Mission Girl.) In the novel, Darznik envisions a business partnership and authentic friendship between Lange and her assistant, whom she names Caroline Lee. This propels the plot forward and allows Lange to see firsthand the discrimination, bigotry, and disregard Lee encounters. Few repercussions exist for police brutality, human trafficking, or unjust labor practices toward Chinese Americans. Another character is based on California Senator John Phelan, whose 1920 campaign slogan was Keep California White. It is as if Lange is stunned by the photo developing in her darkroom. Soon she stops snapping pictures of the wealthy elite and starts taking pictures of ordinary people.
Though ‘The Bohemians’ focuses on Lange’s formative years, the story does touch on Lange’s later contributions. In the early 1930s, with the Depression in full force, many Americans lack food, shelter, and clothing. Lange and her artist husband, Maynard Dixon, decide to document the suffering they see. Lange takes a shot of a breadline in San Francisco which she titles White Angel Breadline. Her skill enables her to reveal the story of those she photographs. Lange says, “I had to make myself useful. Somehow, I had to get people to see.” Eventually, Lange’s images of unemployed fathers and weary migrant mothers appear in newspapers. People who had been hidden become visible to politicians and policymakers.
I would have liked to hear more about the decades after Lange’s pivot from the privileged to the poor. That said, Darznik delivers an immersive story of an era that resonates with our own. Her characters live through the Spanish Flu, anti-Asian hostility, and xenophobic deportations. As we struggle with our own pandemic, Darznik reminds us that this is a painful pattern. By writing about a woman who helped the world see hardship and injustice, Darznik inspires us to truly see the others in our own time.
House of Sand and Fog by Andre Dubus III
The House of Sand and Fog is probably best read in December when the darkness of the month matches the darkness of this gripping story. This novel by Andre Dubus III was a National Book Award finalist in 1999. Dubus captures the characteristics, values, and motivations of each of his three protagonists. He provides compelling back-stories and psychological nuance for each of these characters. I felt frustration and anger as well as understanding and empathy as each character made choices that I knew were not going to end well. As my grandmother used to say, “We are all prisoners of our personalities.”
Dubus’ book also illuminates the ongoing culture clashes between immigrants and those who (erroneously) perceive themselves as indigenous Americans. Massoud Behrani is a former colonel in the Iranian Imperial Air Force and was forced to leave Iran after the overthrow of the Shah. Once in California, he drives a fancy car and dresses in a suit when he leaves for work. But then he parks the car and changes his clothes to collect garbage by day and clerk at a convenience store by night. He must maintain the impression that he is still affluent to his fellow Iranian exiles. When he sees an ad for "Seized Property for Sale," he purchases a three-bedroom ranch house with his meager remaining funds. Filled with hope, he and his wife and teenage son move into the home. Behrani intends to improve the house and resell it for a profit. The house symbolizes the beginning of his new successful life in America.
Unfortunately, the house was improperly sold due to a bureaucratic error by the county. The rightful owner of the house is a troubled young woman named Kathy Nichols who works hard at being a waitresses and keeping away from drugs. For her, too, this little bungalow, with a distant view of the Pacific Ocean, represents stability. When Kathy Nichols drives to the house to confront Colonel Behrani, Sheriff Lester Burdon is called to the scene. Before long, Sherrif Burdon falls in love with Kathy and becomes obsessed with helping her to get her house back. (A little cliché, but it works.)
When the county offers to return the Colonel’s money, he refuses. He is a man who is accustomed to getting what he wants and he wants the house. As the days and weeks pass by, Kathy and Behrani think of little else. Neither will give in. Their thoughts and behaviors become focused and narrow. It is as if they are in a tunnel from which they cannot escape. Kathy and Behrani both perceive that ownership of this house will provide solidity and stability to their lives. Their rigidity prohibits them from understanding each other’s perspective. There is tenderness when Kathy Nichols and Mrs. Behrani interact, which made me feel hopeful that the conflict could be resolved. But, not surprisingly, the terms of engagement seem dictated by the men and my hope soon faded. The Colonel’s obstinacy sets the tone and is a catalyst for the tragic chaos that ensues. Like characters in a Shakespeare play, Dubus’ three characters pass a point of no return where they abandon rational thought and make choices that lead to dire consequences. As Colonel Behrani says, “For our excess we lost everything.”
