Washington is for Lovers

Title: Cherry Blossom Princess

Author: Marjorie Holmes

Publisher: Westminster Press, 1960

Jacket: not credited
Setting: Glamorous Washington D.C.

Provenance: formerly the property of the Sacramento County Library

Fun: Shopping, parades, politics, revenge

Quote: "Where in the world did you get all this stuff?" was all that Marty could think to exclaim.

"Oh, hither and yon," Kitty said, hanging her mink jacket in the hall closet..."The rug's a genuine Saruk. We got it in Bagdad for a song. That inlaid mother of pearl cabinet's a present from Madame Chiang Kai-Shek. The tray's from Haile Selassie. The Delft clock -- isn't it cute, all the moving figures? -- is from the Dutch queen."

If you look up Marjorie Holmes on Ebay or any other used bookseller website, you will find quite a lot of inspirational books, both fiction and non-fiction. Her young adult stuff is harder to find, and this book in particular is considered quite rare -- I've seen copies in top condition listed for $30 or $40. (I jumped on $13 for a ex-library copy in fair condition as a bargain.) My guess is no one can resist either the title or the cover.

In real life, Holmes lived in Washington DC, and between books she wrote a newspaper column on family issues*. She came from Iowa, and she gives this same origin to Marty of Cherry Blossom Princess. Marty is sent to visit her aunt and uncle (a VIP in the State Department) in DC to get her mind off being dumped by her boyfriend, Don. In a matter of pages, her aunt and uncle fix it up that Marty will be Iowa's entry into the Cherry Blossom Princess festival, and in another trice Marty has 1) boy next door Mike, 2) charming but engaged official escort Skip, 3) poor old Don, whose high school band has come to Washington to participate in the festival, all trailing after her.

The great success of Cherry Blossom Princess is in its Cinderella evocation of a certain phase of adolescence: on the verge of being an adult and yet still only pretending to be one. Marty and her various escorts and boyfriends go to restaurants and dances and "parties in someone's apartment in Georgetown"; they roam Washington after dark, gazing at the monuments and uttering civics-class sentiments. Marty cries into her pillow at night and spends hours waving from a parade float the next morning. It's a whirlwind of glamor, heartbreak, springtime and emotional exhaustion. And yes, I was a tiny bit jealous, though I remember that feeling well. (A Marriott Hotel in Louisville, Kentucky can seem mighty glamorous when you're seventeen.)
Eventually the party ends and Marty walks off with Mike, glad to be over Don and free of Skip. You get the feeling, though, that Iowa will never seem the same.

 

*ETA:  I did not do my research properly on Holmes.  She was best known as the author of Two from Galilee (1972), the first of a trilogy about the courtship of Mary and Joseph and the adolescence of Jesus.  Two from Galilee is very reflective of an era in which the humanity of Jesus as an ordinary person was often stressed (see Godspell and Jesus Christ Superstar, for instance.)  Let's just say the book is sort of...earthy, although any book in which the Virgin Mary gets her period on the first page  deserves some credit, I think.

-- August 2014

Beyond the Dream

Title: Follow Your Dream
Author: Marjorie Holmes
Cover Art: James Talone
Publisher: Westminster Press, 1961
Setting: Hometown Washington, DC
Fun: Hamsters in the refrigerator; Georgetown grande dames; a crazy cat lady
Quote: "Beside her, holding a monkey, stood the tallest, handsomest and quite the most terrifying man Tracey had ever seen."

The authors of many of these novels, most of whom, according to the jacket blurbs, were the mothers of teenagers themselves, seemed to know very well that marriage did not preclude a career. In fact, in book after book, they are fully in sympathy with girls who want to do something or make something of themselves. Follow Your Dream is a textbook example of this -- there is never any doubt that Tracey will become a veterinarian. The twist is that Tracey wants a man as well.

We first meet Tracey Temple when she is being told, by a school Career Day speaker, that women can't be veterinarians. Tracey proceeds to heckle him, and is reprimanded by the principal. Being a vet is not just her dream, but her destiny, and when school ends, she is thrilled to get a summer job with Dr. Jane Baldwin, Washington D.C.'s only female vet. On the first day there, however, she falls in love with Whit, a third-year vet student. Whit, as it turns out, is in love with Diana, another student. And then there's Jeff, Tracey's old flame, who also falls for Diana, and good old Dudley, the boy next door. In short, it's a full-fledged love...well, pentagon, which winds through the story and pushes the animal-hospital vignettes into the background.

Tracey is a strong characters and Follow Your Dream never for a moment suggests she would be happier getting married and settling down. But what Tracey wants is Whit and a career, and what Follow Your Dream does suggest is that Tracey will never get both. Whit goes off to finish his education at the end of the book, hinting that Tracey ought to "stop knocking herself out over the wrong things. The things that were never meant for you." And Follow Your Dream leaves it at that. There is a future for Tracey, but, as with any of us, it may not be the one we anticipate.