The Street Called Straight

by Basil King

1911. Canadian clergyman turned writer, Basil King (author of The Inner Shrine) produced his first noteworthy novel at the age of 50. He believed in spiritualism and claimed that a spirit personality guided his writing. The Street Called Straight, his best-selling dramatic story of present day American life begins: As a matter of fact, Davenant was under no illusions concerning the quality of the welcome his hostess was according him, though he found a certain pleasure in being once more in her company. It was not a keen pleasure, but neither was it an embarrassing one; it was exactly what he supposed it would be in case they ever meet again-a blending on his part of curiosity, admiration, and reminiscent suffering out of which time and experience had taken the sting.

326 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1912

About the author

'William Benjamin Basil King was born 26 February, 1859, in Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island. He had a stormy childhood and strict religious upbringing, alluded to in his The Conquest of Fear (1921), inspired by his fears of becoming blind. As an adolescent who had already for some years been losing his sight along with having thyroid gland problems, the young King was deemed not fit for work. He spent a lonely and melancholy autumn at Versailles in France, unoccupied and alone with his introspection and agonising over his fears of fate dealing him a bitter blow, a total loss of vision.

In 1881 he graduated from the University of King's College in Nova Scotia and two years later married Esther Foote. 1884 saw him ordained as Anglican priest and he served as the rector of St Luke's Cathedral in Halifax. In 1892 he became the rector of Christ Church, Cambridge, Massachusetts, yet in 1900 was forced to resign as a result of further failing eyesight. He would devote the rest of his life to literature.

A major turning point in King's life came from a teacher who spoke of the ingenuity and adaptability of the life-principle, which had somehow arrived on earth and for eons had continually met adversity and remained undefeated. King realised he was allowing his own wealth of ability to lie fallow. He rose to the challenge but still struggled with the seeming fate of Nature and his own untapped spiritual faith. He needed to heed his own advice: "Be bold-and mighty forces will come to your aid."'
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Reviews

[Artemis Eclectica · Rating 2 out of 5]

Forgettable. I've read it but can't for the life of me remember the plot.

[Perry Whitford · Rating 1 out of 5]

Peter Davenport, a rich businessman, realises that he has always been selfish and wants to do a selfless act. A highly Christian sentiment, who wouldn't commend him for it?

Only he decides to lend just under half a million dollars to a man who faces disgrace because he has embezzled the same amount from his clients, who were widows and old maids. The Bible is full of parables which seem obscure at first, but I struggled to understand this one.

King was a clergyman as well as a writer, and he makes a clumsy attempt to lend a divine influence to Davenport's misguided act of altruism, as though God had answered a prayer. And yet the silly ass is not coincidentally in love with the old bounder's daughter, Olivia Guion.

Olivia is engaged to be married to Colonel Ashley, a soldier and consummate English stiff upper lip type, the antithesis of Davenport, the self-made American businessman. In their own way, neither had much of a problem with the fact that Olivia's father systematically swindled a gaggle of old dears out of their life savings. Nor did the author.

Henry James would have made much more of the Transatlantic cultural comparisons, while Edith Wharton would have treated the characters with the cynicism they deserved, without leaving you with the impression that they were a bunch of vacuous blockheads.

I have no idea what the author was trying to make out this poorly chosen premise.

[L. · Rating 2 out of 5]

This is a short story stretched to the breaking point to make it into a novel. Not much really happens, not even enough to make a decent novella.

Olivia Guion is an American heiress (or so she believes) who is preparing for her upcoming wedding to a British colonel. She learns that her father has been embezzling money to keep up the lifestyle to which they have become accustomed. His house of cards is about to collapse, though, and he's looking at a possible trip up the river.

Enter Peter Davenant, a self-made man who offers to lend/give a huge amount of money over to the Guions so the scandal can be averted. Peter is no stranger to Olivia as years ago he proposed to her but she turned him down. (Come to think of it I don't recall it ever being explained why she turned him down.) Olivia is now torn between accepting the money to save her father and not wanting to be beholden to an outsider.

And what about her marriage to Rupert Ashley? Will her family's financial troubles affect her fiancé's military career? Should she call off the wedding to spare him? Will Olivia ever notice frenemy Drusilla is out for herself when it comes to Rupert?