Gerald and Elizabeth by D.E. Stevenson ~ 1969. This edition: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1969. Hardcover. ISBN: 03-066555-8. 245 pages.
My rating: 4/10
I hadn’t noticed a lot of discussion regarding this mild romance-suspense novel by the generally esteemed D.E. Stevenson in my online travels, and as it seemed to be widely available and very reasonably priced (for a DES book) in the second-hand book trade, I rather wondered why.
Well, I wonder no longer. The answer appears quite clear. It is my humble opinion that this book is not very good, and DES fans are keeping a discreet silence, spending their reviewing energies instead on the author’s top end novels.
While it’s sufficiently readable to keep one’s interest gently engaged, and there are charming passages and likeable characters galore, the whole thing is something of a stretch in numerous ways, even allowing for the DES formula of everyone ending up romantically paired up with all “mysteries” neatly resolved.
Dust jacket blurb:
Gerald Brown is young, good-looking, personable, but he holds himself aloof from the other passengers aboard the Ariadne, a small passenger ship returning to London from Cape Town, South Africa. In fact, his behavior is so extremely antisocial that he appears on deck only late at night, rarely venturing from his cabin during the day. Something is troubling him deeply, something that happened while he was working as an engineer in a Cape Town diamond mine that has left him spent and hopeless.
After the Ariadne docks in London, Gerald, desperately in need of a job, decides to contact his sister, the beautiful and famous actress, Elizabeth Burleigh, whose current play is the hit of the London theater season. As he reveals to her his haunting past in South Africa, he learns that she too is suffering, that behind her facade of gaiety and sophistication lurks a nagging suspicion about her mental health that is threatening to destroy her career and her love affair as well.
What are the forces that seem bent on these destroying these young people who have so much to live for? Can the mysteries surrounding their lives be solved – and in time to prevent irreversible consequences?
D.E. Stevenson reveals the answers to these questions in a way that will hold her thousands of fans breathless until the very end…
A glaringly obvious diamond-theft frame-up has our hero fleeing the gossip and speculative glances of South Africa to end up under the protective wing of his older half-sister Elizabeth, star of a rather goofy-sounding London stage play – Elizabeth plays a princess from the planet Venus marooned on Earth, to the delight of the hypothetical crowds who pack each performance during the play’s astoundingly successful run.
But all is not well in Elizabeth’s world either. Though feted by the all and vigorously courted by a kind, handsome and wealthy Scottish shipyard owner, Elizabeth fears that she has inherited the “melancholia” which plagued her long-deceased mother. How can she marry with such a doom hanging over her head? – for naturally it will be passed along to her own children!
As Gerald seeks to make a new start he also strives to delve into the background of Elizabeth’s mother, hoping to make some sort of discovery which will ease his sister’s worries and smooth the rocky path of her romance.
A wartime bombing raid on the night Elizabeth was born and an enterprising maternity nurse hold the key to the actress’s future happiness, and the events surrounding her birth are as spectacularly far-fetched as D.E. Stevenson’s conception of mental illness. Shades of the bizarre insanity scenario of Rochester’s Wife, published thirty years earlier, made me cringe in readerly discomfort for the author’s lack of research and her apparent clinging to archaic superstitions.
The mysteries aren’t very mysterious, and the characters never truly come to life. The author could and did do much better in many of her other novels. In my eyes, this is a book to round out one’s DES collection, but otherwise I feel that it is without a lot of merit. Please don’t give it to a neophyte Dessie; it might endanger one’s contention that this is indeed an author to spend time and energy tracking down!
Leaves & Pages 
I read this last year but, like most of the DES books I’ve read, never got around to reviewing it. All I can say that if you think this is bad (and I agree it is), just wait until you read its sequel, The House of the Deer!
Oh, dear! I hoped that that one might be all right; it’s on my wish list. Well, it’s good to be forewarned. I’ll not be expecting too much, then. Is it so-bad-it’s-good, or just so-bad? 😉
Oh dear, possibly one to avoid, although the premis sounds promising. I have three or four DES novels tbr that I bought off ebay a while back I must get to them at some point.
Well, if I had a choice this wouldn’t be the first one I’d pick… but if you are at all keen on DES then it serves nicely to emphasize the wide range of her novels, from really pretty good to really rather awful! 😉
[…] « Gerald and Elizabeth by D.E. Stevenson […]
The House of the Deer was the last novel DES wrote, and based on the letters of hers I have read in the Howard Gotlieb Archives at Boston University, her health had been going down hill. There was a 1930’s serial version of The House of the Deer published in the Glasgow Bulletin, and DES used that as partial inspiration for her final book, adding to the more dated feel it has compared to some others of her work. And obviously, Gerald and Elizabeth is the 2nd to last, and she was almost as near her end then. Neither are at the top of my list of DES books, but I still enjoy them more than most of the books being published today.
Oh, yes, Gerald and Elizabeth has its good points, and it’s definitely a “keeper” and I will re-read it, but it’s well down on the merit list of the DES titles I have read. It seems quite naïve (is that the word?) in plotting and execution. Where the author rather started losing me was in the description of Elizabeth’s wonderful play. It seemed rather an odd scenario for 1969, a very “innocent” piece to be as popular as DES asked us to believe. And there were many gaps of logic, and I was rather floored by the whole aspect of Elizabeth’s birth story and the matter-of-fact way we were expected just to accept that scenario and nod and smile and treat it as a wonderful thing that solved all of Elizabeth’s issues regarding her “psychological” inheritance. It was all just too simplistic! Even for DES… 😉 But taking into account the author’s age at time of writing – in her late seventies? – and ill health, very understandable. It has a dashed-off sort of feel, similar to the other books of hers I liked for their good bits but could not love without reserve – Peter West, Green Money, and in particular Rochester’s Wife. Crooked Adam also caused me some annoyance…but then she pulled me right back around with The English Air.
I must say that Elizabeth’s birth story rather reminded me of the way I felt at the end of Smouldering Fire – very shocked at the author’s audacity in putting something so *serious* out there in such a casual way. Took me completely aback! Had to re-read the pertinent passages in both books – and then give myself a little shake – “Yes, I did read that bit correctly!” – before going on.
I’m still keen on filling the remaining gaps in my DES collection, and The House of the Deer is one of the next ones I hope to acquire, but I will be tempering my high expectations for it being one of her “top end” stories. I do appreciate the background information, and your comment has been very enlightening, Jerri. Many thanks!
Yeah, I picked this one up from my local library…and then I returned it.
But thanks for the info, Jerri, that does help explain why this book feels like a departure from DES’s usual style and standards.
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[…] flops, of which there are a few. (Yes, Crooked Adam, I’m looking at you. And sibling story Gerald and Elizabeth. Not to mention Rochester’s Wife. Gar! I blushed for the author while reading all of these. […]