Review: A Flash of Gold by Francis R. Bellamy (1922)

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A Flash of Gold is about as far from my usual reading fare as you can get. It was originally serialized in 1922 then published as a novel in 1923. This text came from the serial publication. When it got my attention (the cover), I couldn't figure out what the book is about. Google Books says This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. Using a phrase like civilization as we know it certainly got my attention. The Amazon summary isn't much more helpful: From those mysterious tides of emotion which underlie our lives, making mock of our wisdom and learning, there rises now and then a fine, high-crested wave. And on it rides a tragic soul, destined to laughter and tears and the anguish of the passionate drama. Intense in an instant, melting at a glance, carrying with them all the witchery of the passionate heart—of such are the Nancy Van Wycks of the world. Wow, a high-crested wave, how I not read this book. I can say that, while it isn't going on my list of favorite reads, I don't regret reading it. 

What we have here is your basic spoiled rich girl romance story set against a backdrop of labor unrest and America's entry into WWI. Our main protagonist is flighty rich girl Nancy Van Wyck from Clewesbury, NY who's father makes his money in pottery. Old money dismiss him as the sewer-pipe man . For Nancy, flirting is a blood sport. She takes up with David Carpenter, a young doctor who comes from old money. After a few relationship bumps becauseDavid doesn't play the game right, she agrees to marry him though her father says she won't get any money from him if she does.He doesn't think she can be serious about a relationship and is just like her mother who abandoned the family.

David is idealistic and takes her new home in the Brotherhood House, situated in the working class part of town where he runs a clinic that looks after the mainly immigrant laborers is the town's fabric industries. Nancy seems to adapt at first but then the need for her old social life surfaces. David is very busy with office and house calls and the desperate plight of the inhabitants of  Kerrigan Street so with David's blessings, Nancy goes off with her old friends, dining and dancing, . Then the "imps of conquest" that drive her flirting rise to the surface. Unfortunately her target isn't like any of the young men she usually toys with but one of her father's colleagues, a strong and decisive man used to taking what he wants, and she finds herself in over head and her marriage threatened.

Along with this romantic triangle, Bellamy examines the plight of the immigrants, how they came to the US seeking promised opportunity to better themselves but find the same oppression they experienced back home. Bellamy was very passionate about what America means and how the American Dream isn't being fulfilled. The author has David make a very pointed remark to Nancy when she says they will have to move if they have children: Slums are only for other people's children he says. 

The promise of America versus the reality, comes to a head when the clothing workers' union strikes for higher wages. The owners are set on destroying the union and Bellamy displays a decidedly anti-capitalist attitude. I haven't found much about Francis R. Bellamy but I suspect he was a socialist or sympathizer. At the same time all this is going on, the US has joined the Allies to fight Germany in WWI and the industrialists see an opportunity to make even more money with the need for uniforms.

I don't want to spoil the ending but it does wrap up in a nice Hallmark moment. I thought it was an interesting read as a romance in the rich-girl -out-of-her-element and will-she-find-the-meaning-of- happiness style. It is also interesting to look the style of writing which seems overblown at times but t the same time the sentences are more complex than we commonly see today. I had more than a few "what did what I just read" and I found myself having to back up several pages when I resumed reading the next day. Oh, and there are no chapters, those were added in the novel version. So it's a fairly standard love tested romance with pro-labor, anti-capitalist events running in the background. And a war. that actually clarifies things.

Keywords: romance, labor unrest,. class division