It Haunts Me Still
Review by Tryst Editor

The worst thing about loaning out a book (in this case, Tryst by Elswyth Thane) is losing the book - forever - to an inconsiderate, absentminded nincompoop of a friend, my future sister-in-law, "M" who probably never bothered to read the book. Whereas, my sister, "K" and I share a fierce, unhealthy territorial love of books, literature. It was K who introduced me to Wuthering Heights, Jane Eyre, Laura Ingalls Wilder, Little Women, Nancy Drew; and, my mother who turned me onto Wordsworth, Untermeyer, Homer...etc.

Then, there was Tryst. It was the book that literally made me lovesick; the book that I fell in love with above all others, the one I returned to time and time again and couldn't get enough of. And by the time I turned age thirteen I had read the book at least six or seven times. It was the Ghost Story, the all-consuming love story before its time. The 20-something reviews on Amazon.com will attest to this book's popularity; how it affected so many readers (mostly women, I suspect). Then, my sister made the mistake of loaning the book out to "M," our sister-in-law who in turn made the grievous error of first losing the book and then lying about it for over a year, "I'm not finished reading it" which almost led to a divorce from my brother. To this day, "K" and I have not forgiven "M" for being such an airhead. Seriously, the book is next to impossible to find. The reprints of the book costs around $27, but I haven't had much luck locating the book in new/mint condition and the original, used book runs anywhere from $26 to $150; but NO image of the book cover exists. How very strange.

Even stranger, I googled Tryst by Elswyth Thane and came up with all kinds of startling data. One bit of information that shocked me, I never knew Elswyth Thane (Beebe) was a woman! Gasp! Here all these years I was under the impression that Elswyth was a man and the fact that I didn't even have the inclination to explore and find out more about the author, or even read the jacket cover. What was I thinking?!

Elswyth Thane Ricker (Beebe) was born May 16, 1900 in Burlington, Iowa. Her father was Maurice Ricker. She began as a freelance writer in 1925 and was a newspaper woman and film writer during the era of the "Talkies."

Fifty-year-old William Beebe married then 24-year-old Elswyth Thane Ricker Sept. 22, 1927. They were married on Harrison Williams' yacht, "Warrior" off Oyster Bay. Guests included Professor and Mrs. Henry Osborn, Col. and Mrs. Anthony R. Kuser and Mrs. Theodore Roosevelt, Sr.

Not that this revelation changes anything, certainly not my perspective on the story line, or that the writing still takes my breath away. There is something kinetic about the way the words pull the reader in, the often comical portrayal of the Aunt, and the very frail, but strong-willed Sabrina, and then of course, Hilary. The only way to explain the mystical powers of Tryst is to share one of the reviews I lifted from Amazon.com:

I remembered this book from my teenage years, and it has "haunted" me ever since. It is a love story which explains the inevitability of union when two souls are aligned. Brought to a quiet English country house by her professor father and [maiden] aunt, our shy, bookish heroine is quite content to be tucked away in the hinterlands. She has no suspicion that her life will be forever changed, or rational explaination for why she is so irresistibly drawn to the locked room at the top of the stairs. On the other hand, our hero only knows that he must follow his unreasoning desire to get home, and is all the more determined to do so after the drama and strain in the Asian desert, his most recent completion of what the high commissioner always called the "almost impossible." Death, someone explained, only ends a life; it does not end a relationship. In "Tryst," it begins one.

But what makes me curious now is why Elswyth Thane wrote this novel. What unfulfilled longing propelled the story to a fatal ending? And then there is the unattainable ghost-figure of Hilary, what was his role? Was there an illicit lover that Thane was seeing, or fantasizing over? Considering the timing of the story, set in 1939, WWII looming in Europe, death became the encompassing theme in reality and love afforded Thane an idealistic view of life after death. There is an assurance to believing in life after death, why it is still one of the more popular themes of movies and literature: e.g., "Ghost" (1990), "What Dreams May Come" but do any of us really believe in soul mates? I don't pretend to have a pat answer or even a comforting theory, so I will leave that question struggling, openly on the table.

Furthermore, I know that it's a cop-out, but I also share Liralen's sentiments: Of all the books I've ever read, this one has stayed with me for two decades. [...] I don't really know why and perhaps I do really know why, but sentiment is rather taboo in poetry/writing these days—I swear where do people/writers come up with all these stringent rules? Maybe as an "adult" I've cut loose from those emotional elements as a convenience; and then again, maybe...I am still sentimental, still secretly romantic. I encourage you to pick up a copy, read Tryst and allow yourself to be swept away. In an early style of blog entry, October 1998, under the title, "Quiet" Liralen, whoever she is, wrote:

While waiting on getting hungry enough for dinner, I read. My shipment from Amazon had arrived and in it was a copy of Tryst. It's a book I read when I was a teenager. [...]

Of all the books I've ever read, this one has stayed with me for two decades. Though I've forgotten nearly everything from either high school I attended, this one detail stayed with me, the one title, and the one story. I don't really know why. It's a very teen girl kind of story. Romantic, in a very, very, very odd way, it's the epitome of lost loves, as the guy's dead before she even gets there. They've missed, completely, totally, and are doing their best, anyway, him to support her, her to love him.

Anyway, I got it, and I read bits and pieces last night, and it had all the overtones I'd remembered, from before, all the implied background information, all the things that come out, all the lovely tension between the unseen ghost and the sensative girl with the differences with the entire world.

So, now I have the story that haunted me, and it haunts me still.

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