Money and envy in Stella Gibbons's My American

This article in the series inspired by Stella Gibbons’s My American contains some minor material of particular interest.

The power of money
Stella Gibbons obviously knew the value of money. Some of her books describe the big difference that a small increase in someone's wages - or even a few extra coins - can make. 

She informs us that the Beeding children were rather afraid of their mother – until they became old enough to leave school and start earning some money for themselves:

“All three were larger, more self-confident, less afraid of their mother than they had been three years ago. Mona and Maurice’s weekly pay envelopes had done that for them...Dora had recently been given a rise of five shillings a week and promoted to taking letters in Spanish, which had considerably increased her ambition and self-respect.”

There are some good points here. I know from experience that having an income of one's own – money that has been fairly earned from suitable work, reflects competence and is a by-product of self-improvement – does indeed increase morale and self-assurance. A certain amount of independence is no bad thing; people treat you better when they know that you have other options.

Stella Gibbons balances the positive effect that earning a wage has on the young Beedings with an account of Amy Lee's increasing unhappiness after she becomes very wealthy: 

“It is commonly admitted that money is delightful: but it must also be admitted that money is not much use if you happen to want things which money cannot buy. There is no extraordinary merit in wanting such things; to want them does not give you the right to despise other people who want the things that money can buy; it only means that your money, though useful, will not be more important to you than anything else in the world.

Amy did not know what she wanted; but she was already sure that money could not buy it. She was deeply unhappy, and her unhappiness grew deeper every week. Her luxurious home, her lovely clothes, the charming and intelligent people to whom Lady Welwoodham had introduced her, did not make her one atom less unhappy.”

Stella Gibbons’s young writer Amy Lee

The writer Amy Lee is the main character and main person of interest in Stella Gibbons’s novel My American (1939).

This is not a book that I enjoy reading for the story - I am not too wild about the title either! The plot is rather contrived, and I don't find the American scenes and characters very convincing; they don’t hold my attention at all and I have nothing to say about them. Amy Lee herself becomes much less interesting once she grows up and moves to the USA too.

The many references to parts of north London in the early chapters of the book are another matter; I love to read about places that I know very well. 

Just as Michael de Larrabeiti’s detailed descriptions of Battersea and Wandsworth came from personal experience, so did Stella Gibbons’s descriptions of places such as Highbury and the Holloway Road.

My American opens with a description of the beauties of Hampstead’s Kenwood House and its grounds, which Stella Gibbons obviously liked very much as she mentions Kenwood in several of her other novels.

The most relevant and significant aspect is what this book says about the personality, outlook, behaviour, problems and experiences of a developing young writer and about writers and writing in general. Stella Gibbons makes some very insightful comments from time to time. Some of this material may be autobiographical; some of it may be wishful thinking!

I detect a few more examples of Stella Gibbons’s white magic too.

While most of Stella Gibbons’s other books - apart from The Shadow of a Sorcerer - inspire little or no commentary, My American is full of relevant and quotable material, some of which comes very close to home. 

It is a book that is partly boring, partly annoying, partly painful and partly fascinating to read. 

It even contains a few amusing passages.