This final article in the series inspired by Stella Gibbons’s novel My American features a major influence that I detected.
First, a few comments about the construction and content of My American. I suspect that some of this book was written with the cooperation of what Rudyard Kipling would call a daemon and much of it without.
Up to the point where Amy Lee takes a trip to America, London scenes are alternated with US scenes; from then on most of the action takes place in the U.S. This construction seems bizarre, as though two separate novels have been merged.
The scenes involving guns, gangsters, bootleggers and violence do not inspire commentary, and unlike the descriptions of north London and its people are obviously not based on personal experience.
I think that Stella Gibbons embarrasses herself when she writes about people, settings and activities that she has not seen for herself. She is not the sort of writer who can get away with relying entirely on research, her imagination and the media.
The inspiration for My American
My American was obviously partly based on Stella Gibbons's early life. However, just as I am certain that some elements in John Christopher’s Guardians were inspired by a book that he had read, I am sure that parts of My American were inspired by a book that Stella Gibbons had read. As with John Christopher, I am talking about being inspired to produce something with a similar theme rather than plagiarism.
My American has some elements and settings in common with J. B. Priestley’s best-selling novel Angel Pavement, which was first published nine years earlier in 1930.
I think that Stella Gibbons would not have written My American if she had not read Priestley's book, which is about ordinary people and their lives in London in the late 1920s. Perhaps she found Angel Pavement particularly interesting because many of the characters live in areas of north London that she knew well.
This is not the place to go into this in detail; here are just some of the many similarities that I noticed:
Both novels feature an office in a narrow street close to St. Paul's Cathedral.
Angel Pavement has an office boy whose head is full of stirring stories that he has read in a boys' paper, exciting tales of the adventures of boy aviators and Mexican bandits for example, that sound just like the ones that Amy Lee wrote for the boys' magazine that she worked for and made her first sale to.
Both novels have a character called Lena and one called Dora; Angel Pavement has someone with the name Golspie and My American has someone called Gossey.
Both novels feature a father and young daughter on their own together.
Both novels feature a stern, bossy and rather bitter single woman.
Both novels have someone being sent by their office on a special errand that involves visiting someone in their luxurious home.
Both novels have a scene in which a restless person can't settle to anything in their home – listening to the wireless for example.
Both novels mention commercial Spanish!
Balancing the books and white magic
A major difference between The Guardians and My American is the spirit in which they were written. Stella Gibbons's book appears to have been written partly to balance the book that influenced her. She replaces some of the depressing and negative elements in Angel Pavement with encouraging and positive ones. She rewrites some of the events to give them a positive outcome.
This comment from My American is very interesting:
“...it is well known that when someone is under a spell, nothing but the counter-spell will free them.”
I see much of Stella Gibbons's writing as an attempt to create counter-spells – white magic to counter black. I see My American – the London scenes at least – as a counter-spell to Angel Pavement.
Where Priestley destroys most of his characters, Stella Gibbons rescues hers and gives them suitable happy endings.
The company in Angel Pavement where many of the characters work goes bankrupt; Amy Lee financially bails out the magazine that she once worked for.
In Angel Pavement, commercial Spanish is mentioned dismissively as a last resort, something suitable for older women who have nothing better to do; in My American, it is an asset. Stella Gibbons arranges a marriage for one of her single women (the one who exudes a hot-vinegar smell of envy), and makes another, Mona Beeding's elder sister Dora, thrive on her independent life and the good living she makes from her knowledge of commercial Spanish!
A reviewer said this about Angel Pavement:
“...the absolute conviction expressed by most of its characters that their lives would be better lived out elsewhere, doing other things and in the company of other people."
Stella Gibbons balances J. B. Priestley's characters who want other and better people, places and activities with some who are contented with what they have. The Beeding family in My American are mostly very satisfied with their lives, and so is Amy Lee after she goes to live in America.
This is a good point at which to call it a day for My American.
Amazon has just reissued the 2011 paperback version of the novel, which is also available on Kindle.
One of the many editions of Angel Pavement:
