Brace yourselves: this is a long one.
Here is a blurb I found at the end of PG’s text of From the Car Behind:
Why should a young well-bred girl be under a vow of obedience to a man after she had broken her engagement to him? This is the mysterious situation that is presented in this big breezy out-of-doors romance. When Craig Schuyler, after several years’ absence, returns home, and without any apparent reason fastens on Nell Sutphen an iron bracelet. A sequence of thrilling events is started which grip the imagination powerfully, and seems to “get under the skin.” There is a vein of humor throughout, which relieves the story of grimness.
It describes a book by David Potter called I Fasten a Bracelet. Here’s a review of it from The New York Times:
Of course an author has a right to draw a cad or a blackguard, but we demand that he shall recognize such creatures for what they are. When he blends the two and presents the composite as a hero, there must be mutiny on the part of even the most long-suffering of readers. This is just what David Potter does in “I Fasten a Bracelet” (J.B. Lipincott Company, $1.25.) The autobiographical protagonist is introduced, returned to the United States from Sumatra. He takes possession as a master of a certain luxurious home. Its widowed owner and her daughter, especially the daughter, he treats with the utmost contumely and insolent tyranny. He commands the daughter’s slavish obedience, her movements are all to be subject to his orders; dinner parties are to be given at his bequest; the fair and high-bred Ellen is to give an account of her goings out and her comings in; she is to conform to his whims; she is, in short, a scorned and insulted bondswoman, to punish whom he presently locks upon her arm a two-inch band of iron, “more nearly a handcuff than a bracelet,” once the badge of servitude of an African slave. And all this because he was the rejected lover of the lady who afterward, as he mistakenly supposed, forged his name upon a check for a large amount!
Fancy a gentleman, a man, taking such a method of revenge. Yet this is Mr. Potter’s hero, and one whom the much-tortured heroine declares in the end to be “a very noble person.” Where is it that a wife doubts her husband’s love unless he gives her an occasional beating? Of that country must Ellen Sutphen have been a native. The book is fairl readable, but both characters and situations lack reality, and it contains nothing which atones for its blunder in a hero.
And, just for good measure, here’s another from The National Magazine:
On the strength of certain incriminating evidence against Craig Schuyler, his engagement with Ellen Sutphen is broken. He seeks comfort in travel, while his social set take his disappearance as tantamount to a confession of guilt. “I Fasten a Bracelet” opens with his return to his old haunts. During his absence a check payable to Ellen and bearing his signature has been cashed by his bank. Schuyler knows of the Sutphen reverses and in his mind brands Ellen a forger. It happens that her brother has confessed to her his guilt, and that she has the money to make restitution upon Schuyler’s appearance. The fact that he could believe her guilty arouses her pride and indignation, and she remains silent. Schuyler proceeds to dominate her movements, and as a mark of her slavery places on her arm an iron
4 Comments on I Fasten a Bracelet, last added: 6/15/2010Display Comments Add a Comment
Very intriguing. I think I’ll try it.
Well, I won’t say it wasn’t fun to read.
you know..the book says the author is David Potter but the download link is Edward Barron..minor detail but intriguing..there’s also a blurb for a book by david potter called The Accidental Honeymoon which sounds cute..unfortuntely i don’t think its available online..
I noticed that as well — my guess is that David Potter was Edward Barron’s pseudonym, but who knows?
“The Accidental Honeymoon” is a really good title. And I do think Potter/Barron is a pretty good writer.