The Bohemians: A Novel

by Jasmin Darznik Narrated by Dylan Moore

Overview

A dazzling novel of one of America's most celebrated photographers, Dorothea Lange, exploring the wild years in San Francisco that awakened her career-defining grit, compassion, and daring.

“Jasmin Darznik expertly delivers an intriguing glimpse into the woman behind those unforgettable photographs of the Great Depression, and their impact on humanity.”-Susan Meissner, bestselling author of The Nature of Fragile Things

In this novel of the glittering and gritty Jazz Age, a young aspiring photographer named Dorothea Lange arrives in San Francisco in 1918. As a newcomer-and naïve one at that-Dorothea is grateful for the fast friendship of Caroline Lee, a vivacious, straight-talking Chinese American with a complicated past, who introduces Dorothea to Monkey Block, an artists' colony and the bohemian heart of the city. Dazzled by Caroline and her friends, Dorothea is catapulted into a heady new world of freedom, art, and politics. She also finds herself falling in love with the brilliant but troubled painter Maynard Dixon. As Dorothea sheds her innocence, her purpose is awakened and she grows into the artist whose iconic Depression-era “Migrant Mother” photograph broke the hearts and opened the eyes of a nation.

A vivid and absorbing portrait of the past, The Bohemians captures a cast of unforgettable characters, including Frida Kahlo, Ansel Adams, and D. H. Lawrence. But moreover, it shows how the gift of friendship and the possibility of self-invention persist against the ferocious pull of history.

Editorial Reviews

From the Publisher

If you loved Song of a Captive Bird like I did, you will want to read the latest creative historical biography by Jasmin Darznik. Darznik paints an illuminative portrait of the photographer and the woman.”—Ms. Magazine

“Lange’s story begins when she arrives in 1918 San Francisco . . . spinning into an all-too relevant tale of a woman dealing with a pandemic, rising anti-immigration sentiment, and a tumultuous political climate.”—PopSugar

“In her riveting and resonant new novel, Jasmin Darznik captures San Francisco’s heyday through the eyes of one of its most iconic residents. By exploring how Dorothea Lange witnessed her troubled and momentous times, Darznik speaks directly to our own.”—Anthony Marra, author of A Constellation of Vital Phenomena

“You’ll never look at a Dorothea Lange photograph the same way after reading Darznik’s compelling portrait of the trailblazer who carved a glorious path through 1920s San Francisco. Darznik doesn’t flinch when confronting the parallels to today, whether racism or anti-immigrant sentiment, yet her impeccable research grounds the story firmly in the heyday of the Jazz Age. A superb read.”—Fiona Davis, New York Times bestselling author of The Lions of Fifth Avenue

“Dorothea Lange once famously said, ‘Art is an act of total attention.’ Jasmin Darznik’s breathtaking novel The Bohemians accomplishes that and more. Not only did it have me riveted from start to finish, through her words, history powerfully speaks to the present moment.”—Lara Prescott, author of The Secrets We Kept

“A beautiful literary portrait of the one and only Dorothea Lange. Jasmin Darznik expertly delivers in this intriguing glimpse into the woman behind those unforgettable photographs of the Great Depression’s impact on humanity. Highly readable and utterly relevant to our times. I was transported.”—Susan Meissner, bestselling author of The Nature of Fragile Things

“Historical readers will treasure this engaging story . . . Darznik deftly depicts Lange's transformation into a renowned photographer.”—Library Journal

“A powerful novel about a woman who shuns convention to follow her passion.”—Kirkus Reviews

“Darznik is adept at depicting Dorothea’s evolving worldview as well as San Francisco a decade after the earthquake, a ‘world of raw possibility,’ especially for women artists.”—Publishers Weekly

“Modern echoes abound in a city under a pall of economic turmoil and racial disharmony advanced by politicians for their own ends as well as the global influenza pandemic. Darznik has created an arresting portrait of two women set before an illuminating backdrop.”—Booklist

Library Journal

04/01/2021

In 1918, Dorrie, a 22-year-old white woman from New Jersey, arrives in San Francisco with only a camera and a few possessions, and no backup plan. She pawns the camera for room and board and befriends Caroline Lee, a Chinese American woman who introduces her to Monkey Block, the bohemian center of San Francisco. Dorrie (now Dorothea) gradually establishes herself as a successful portrait photographer with Caroline's help, until a scandal changes everything. This historical novel set post-World War I, against the backdrop of the 1918 flu pandemic, chronicles Dorothea Lange's early years, before her prolific career in documentary photography. VERDICT Historical fiction readers will treasure this engaging story peppered with notable figures from Lange's circle of friends, including D. H. Lawrence, Ansel Adams, Maynard Dixon, and Frida Kahlo. Darznik (Song of a Captive Bird) deftly depicts Lange's transformation into a renowned photographer, as well as the blatant prejudice that Caroline encounters because of her Chinese lineage.—Mary Todd Chesnut, Northern Kentucky Univ. Lib., Highland Heights

Kirkus Reviews

2021-03-31
A captivating novel based on the life of photographer Dorothea Lange, who earned lasting recognition for her poignant Depression era images.

Dorothea Lange springs to life—from her beginnings as a portrait photographer for the rich and famous to the calling she is most known for today, photographing the struggles of families during the Depression. Dorrie, 23, moves from New York to San Francisco in 1918, anxious to start a new life, but her vision of a bright future quickly fades. Upon arrival, she is robbed of her money. Stranded at the train station, she meets Caroline Lee, a beautiful young Chinese woman who later introduces her to female photographers within an artists’ colony who encourage her to set up a portrait studio. Caroline is fictional, but she is a strong character in her own right, facing the world with courage and determination. Dorrie faces discrimination for her gender; Caroline more so for her race. They are inseparable until a brutal event pushes Caroline to isolate herself. Dorrie’s marriage to famed artist Maynard Dixon creates a conflict for her as she tries to balance her creative needs with those of her family and forces choices that lead her to find her true passion. She loses touch with Caroline for decades until she's driven to seek her out. Darznik, with a keen eye to history, weaves real artists and historic events into an engaging story of struggle and success. Though the book is set more than 100 years ago, it feels powerfully contemporary: Men return from the battlefields of World War I to reclaim their jobs and positions in society. The Spanish flu arrives on the West Coast, forcing businesses to fold and people to quarantine. Politicians rail against foreigners; raids take place across the city. Strong, well-portrayed female characters propel this intriguing tale.

A powerful novel about a woman who shuns convention to follow her passion.

Product Details

BN ID:	2940177186504
Publisher:	Penguin Random House
Publication date:	04/06/2021
Edition description:	Unabridged

Read an Excerpt

1.

Lady photographer and Oriental girl capture San Francisco’s heart.

There’s a picture of us that ran in the paper in 1918. In it we’re standing side by side, me with my Graflex around my neck and Caroline with a smile that dares you to look elsewhere. She’s wearing a tunic with long, bell-shaped sleeves and a thick satin strap cinched at her waist. It’s a kind of costume, and so is my outfit: flowy crushed-velvet dress, stacks of silver bangles, a long paisley scarf. We both have bobbed hair, except that mine’s a mass of dark-blond curls and hers is black and sleek. There’s a glint in Caroline’s kohl-rimmed eyes, but it’s a black-and-white picture, so you can’t see their color, which was the color of cut glass.

Whenever I saw this picture in the years that followed, I was immediately transported back to our studio at 540 Sutter Street in San Francisco—or 540, as we’d called it. As if it was still just the two of us, Caroline and me, so lit up with hope and so at home. We’d both gone so long thinking we had no place in the world that we couldn’t imagine belonging to anything but each other. By the time that picture was taken, the studio had become our home, the home we built through grit and sheer will. We worked eighteen-hour days, Monday to Saturday. Exhausted as we always were, we loved it, every minute of it, but if there was a time we loved more than any other, it was those nights when our friends streamed down from Monkey Block. Everybody brought everybody, and 540 filled with music and dancing and brilliant talk.

Within two years all that ended and I was on my own again.

After the scandal broke and Caroline disappeared, I’d see the whole story come into focus in a single frame. What happened. What I could never undo. I’d see Caroline sitting on the floor, knees pulled up to her chin, head bowed. I’d see her lifting her eyes and fixing me with a distant, unblinking gaze. I’d see the shadow on her cheek that would deepen to purple by morning.

If only I could have picked up my Graflex, flipped open the lens, and taken a picture, there would have been some kind of proof. But I couldn’t do it. I loved her so much, and in that moment I couldn’t bring myself to capture her pain. Still, the story was in every picture I took afterward, in the ones people talked about and remembered, but also in the ones that were hidden, destroyed, or forgotten. Especially those. It’s the image that never varies or fades, even though I’m the only one who knows it’s there.

To take a truly good picture you have to learn to see, not just look. I once said a camera can teach you that, but the truth is that sometimes it only gets in the way. The realization was born that night. This many years later, it takes me back to San Francisco, to a portrait studio at 540 Sutter Street, to a ravaged darkroom where one story ended and another one began.

The first and most important thing that happened to me when I got to San Francisco was that I learned what it felt like to be alone and penniless, to have no tie to the world but fear, hunger, and need. That’s where it all started for me.

I set out in the spring of 1918. I was nearly twenty-three, eager and restless, with just-bobbed hair. I had all sorts of ideas of who and how and where I wanted to be. I’d scrimped for two years to save the hundred and forty-two dollars folded inside my wallet. Two years of hand-sewn dresses, borrowed books, lunch pails of leftover mackerel or canned beans on stale black bread, but I’d done it. I’d seen my last East Coast winter. Nothing could hold me there any longer.

I sailed from New Jersey in a steamer, traveled five days down to New Orleans in a third-class berth, then another twelve days across the country by train. I’d been saving up to go to Paris, but with the war on there was no chance of that. My plan now was to spend a few weeks in San Francisco, then head south to Mexico. The details fell off from there, but I figured I’d just keep going until my money ran out, and when there was no farther I could go, I’d work out what came next.

I carried my camera in a case that hung to my hips. There’d been little else to keep and even less I cared to hold on to. On my lap sat a battered leather valise I’d picked up in a thrift shop before leaving home. It held a half dozen rolls of fresh film, a pencil and sketchbook, a few days’ change of clothes, a toiletry kit, and a secondhand copy of Edna St. Vincent Millay’s Renascence. 

The train was crowded and noisy; the food was terrible and cost too much. For days I was tired and hungry, my body was stiff from trying to sleep upright in my seat, and my bad leg had cramped up, but the moment the conductor lurched through the car calling, “Oakland Station! Next stop Oakland Station!” I sprang to my feet, belted my coat, and gathered my valise.

Someone propped open a window, and a breeze rushed through the cabin. There was a great deal of shuffling and maneuvering around me; people were crowding on one side of the train, craning their necks to catch sight of something outside.

At first I couldn’t make out a thing, but then I edged my way closer to the window and stepped up onto my toes. The bay emerged, splendid and sparkling, the low angle of the sun catching it and setting it aglow. When I squinted hard, I could make out steamer tugs and fishing boats and beyond that a city skyline, clinging to the edge of the earth and struck gold by the afternoon sun.

San Francisco. The Jewel City. Paris of the West. A place where everything—absolutely anything—
could happen, and probably was happening at this very moment. A place you could disappear into if you dared.

Here it was. Here I was.

I’d grown up close to the water, not far from the Hoboken shipyards, but nothing prepared me for that first glimpse of San Francisco in May 1918. Until that moment I didn’t know everything around a city—sky, land, sea—could make it look so small. But even if San Francisco seemed smaller than I’d pictured, it was still a thing of beauty and wonder, what with the bay and deep-green hills encircling it. Also, it wasn’t just beautiful; it was foreign to me in a way Manhattan had once been and wasn’t anymore. No one here knew me, which meant I could be whoever I wanted to be.

When the view disappeared behind factories and rows of clapboard houses, I cracked open my camera case and admired my Graflex, its sleek metal shine, its perfect polished lens. Arnold Genthe had given it to me a few months after I’d started working for him. It was my first camera and by far the best gift anyone had ever given me. “You have an eye, Dorothea,” he’d told me. It always made me smile, remembering that day. Genthe’s eyes dancing as he held the camera out to me. The moment when I took it in my hands, felt its exquisite weight, and understood it was mine.

The train jerked and tilted and stopped. I made my way down the aisle and out onto the platform, half-carried by the crowd. I hurried along as fast as I could, as fast as my limp let me. Soon I was in the streets, heading toward the docks with my bag thumping against my thigh and my heart slamming against my chest. I had on a split skirt that ended at my ankles, a tan mackintosh cinched tightly at my waist, and high-buttoned brown boots. The boots could’ve used a shine, but I was bent on catching the very next ferry out to San Francisco, so that would have to wait for now.

The whole business was over so fast. One minute the ferry was rocking softly, easing into the terminal, and the next minute it bumped hard against the piles, jostling the passengers and knocking us into one another. I stumbled and nearly fell, but then a hand grabbed my waist, its hold warm and firm.

“Careful there, miss,” came a voice from behind me.

I twisted around. The man standing there was handsome and beautifully dressed, with a three-piece suit and a checkered bow tie, blue eyes, and blond hair slick with brilliantine. I felt myself staring. It was rare to see young men nowadays, particularly young men out of uniform. Somehow the war hadn’t claimed him—or hadn’t claimed him yet.

It took me a minute, but I came back to myself, straightening up and lifting my chin. When I thanked him, the man winked and gave me the richest smile in the world.

Well, hello, California, I thought, and felt my cheeks go warm.

Once we disembarked, there was no sign of that young man, but it hardly mattered, not with all the plans ticking through my head. Then, a few steps from the ferry building, I happened on a bakery. Through the window I saw a stack of doughnuts under a glass dome. My stomach gave a twist. The last real meal I’d eaten had been somewhere in Texas. It was only some minutes later, when I’d ordered two doughnuts and a cup of coffee, that I reached into my pocket and discovered that my wallet had disappeared. I reached inside the other pocket, the one where I always kept my watch, but it, too, was empty.

For one wild, dumbstruck moment I stood completely still, heart kicking against my chest, and then it came to me in a slow seep of understanding: That handsome and beautifully dressed man on the ferry was a thief. In what I’d always count as one of the genuine miracles of my life, I still had my camera, but as for my money, it was all—every dollar of it—gone.

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