The Bohemians

January 13, 2014
Tarnoff’s (A Counterfeiter’s Paradise) glimmering prose lends grandeur to this account of four writers (Mark Twain, Bret Harte, Charles Warren Stoddard, and Ina Coolbrith) who built “an extraordinary literary scene” in the frontier boom town of 1860s San Francisco. Twain gets the most page time, but is the least delicately handled; Tarnoff reserves his affection for the city itself and its “community of fellow misfits” who, drawing on the unique energy of young California and the language, humor, and mythology of the West, create a “native national literature, liberated from the cultural imperialism of the Old World.” While the revolutionary claims are ambitious—Twain’s jumping frog of Calaveras County is “the Fort Sumter of American letters,” his The Innocents Abroad “a bullet in the heart of America’s literary establishment”—Tarnoff thoughtfully situates the rise of “a unique American vernacular” in a confluence of economic, geographic, and historical forces. The impacts of the self-styled Bohemians emerge most clearly in the nostalgic reflections of the chief characters only after they have left San Francisco for parts abroad. Nevertheless, the lively historical detail and loving tone of the interwoven biographies make a highly readable story of this formative time in American letters, starring San Francisco as the city that lifted Twain “to literary greatness.” Photos. Agent: Joy Harris, Joy Harris Literary Agency.

January 15, 2014
Four ambitious writers star in this literary history. Journalist Tarnoff (A Counterfeiter's Paradise: The Wicked Lives and Surprising Adventures of Three Early American Moneymakers, 2011) tells a lively story of mid-19th-century San Francisco, focused on champagne-swilling Mark Twain, foppish Bret Harte, poet and essayist Charles Warren Stoddard, and little-remembered poet Ina Coolbrith. Despite the book's hyperbolic subtitle, Tarnoff does not make a case for these writers' revolutionary impact on American literature; nor, in fact, that Stoddard and Coolbrith had any impact at all. In the 1860s, Harte was well-known for humorous short stories about California life, but by 1871, when he came East for a speaking tour, his career was over. "It was the corpse of that Bret Harte that swept in splendor across the continent," Mark Twain announced. Although Twain had by then reconciled with his one-time rival, he did not mourn Harte's literary downfall. His star was rising, partly due to his recognition by William Dean Howells, the influential editor of the Atlantic Monthly; partly due to his status as a brilliant performer who attracted huge audiences to his one-man shows; partly due to the fact that readers east of the Mississippi were enthralled by fiction set on the raunchy frontier. Exuberant stories gave the young nation new myths, establishing the West as "a place of paradox and incongruity, where conventional rules of sentiment and syntax broke down, and humor overlaid everything." Twain proved to be a master of this new genre. In such works as Innocents Abroad, a best-seller in 1869, Twain's characters were ordinary middle Americans, honest, open and free of an old-world veneer of sophistication: "They belonged to a country of the future: an innovative, economically ascendant nation with a style all its own." It may be, as Tarnoff asserts, that these writers spent the best years of their lives in California, but only Twain, living in New York and Connecticut, left a lasting literary legacy.

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March 15, 2014
California was always crawling with scribblers, Tarnoff remarks, while San Francisco, a promising metropolis far from the horrors of the Civil War, engendered a thriving publishing culture supported by voracious, opinionated readers. Four very different writers who just so happened to share contempt for custom and a taste for satire ended up joining forces as the Bohemians: young, bold Mark Twain; Bret Harte, whose dandyish appearance belied courageous defiance (though he did hide his Jewish heritage); the vulnerable, lovable, and clandestinely gay Charles Warren Stoddard; and independent Ina Coolbrith, who concealed her family's Mormon connection and the horrors of her brief marriage. These creative, hardworking, under-stress literary Bohemians turned two journals, Golden Era and Overland Monthly, into nationally renowned forums for fresh, probing, irreverent writing. Tarnoff energetically portrays this irresistible quartet within a vital historical setting, tracking the controversies they sparked and the struggles they endured, bringing forward an underappreciated facet of American literature. We see Twain in a revealing new light, but most affecting are Tarnoff's insights into Harte's downward spiral, Stoddard's faltering, and persevering Coolbrith's triumph as California's first poet laureate.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2014, American Library Association.)

February 15, 2014

San Francisco-based Tarnoff (A Counterfeiter's Paradise) chronicles the lives of four American writers--a young Mark Twain falls in with rising literary star Bret Harte, poet Charles Stoddard, and dark poetess Ina Coolbirth--living in the Bay Area from the early 1860s to 1878, a tumultuous time of boom and bust. Together, these "so-called Bohemians" carouse, chase fame, and heavily influence one another's work. Harte eventually takes on a mentorship role, becomes editor of The Overland, but ultimately his self-absorbed personality effectively dissolves the group. In the book's first half, Tarnoff successfully paints a grand portrait of San Francisco, bringing to life the friendship and rivalry of the writers. While the latter half of this title lacks the spirit infused into its beginning, Tarnoff describes admirably Twain's growth following his departure from the West Coast and his courtship of Olivia Langdon. Particular attention is paid to Twain's evolution from story writer to star author, with his publication of The Innocents Abroad in 1869. VERDICT Readers hoping for a work wholly dedicated to the writers living in San Francisco during the period may be somewhat disappointed, as two of the four are not in the city for half of the years covered in the book. Recommended for fans of the authors, particularly Harte and Twain, and readers of American history, biography, and American literary history. [See Prepub Alert, 10/1/13.]--Benjamin Brudner, Curry Coll. Lib., Milton, MA

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October 1, 2013

In the 19th century, it wasn't just East Coast imagination shaping and reshaping American literature. San Francisco-born author/journalist Tarnoff (A Counterfeiter's Paradise) starts in the 1860s in his hometown, introducing us to the so-called Bohemians: Mark Twain (out west as a draft dodger), the admired Bret Harte, gay writer Charles Warren Stoddard, and poet Ina Coolbrith. Trailblazing.

Copyright 2013 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.