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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