Lorenzo in Taos

by Mabel Dodge Luhan

About D.H. lawrence's life in New Mexico as a boarder with the author

Genres: Memoir, Nonfiction, Biography, The United States Of America

352 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1933

About the author

Mabel Evans Dodge Sterne Luhan was an American patron of the arts, who was particularly associated with the Taos art colony.

Reviews

[Sketchbook · Rating 5 out of 5]

A riveting psychodrama. Although Mabel Dodge (1879-1962) wrote other books, I am stunned to discover that this famously rich salonista who created an arts colony in Taos, NM, had a personal literary style. Carl Van Vechten said she was a key influence on his taste and aesthetics. "She was a great woman and she completed my education," he wrote, referring to their close NYC friendship pre-W1.

To her adobe palace, set amid peach orchards, streams-hot
springs and snow-kissed mountains, come DH Lawrence, then 37, ("agitated, fussy, giggling") and wife Frieda ("over-expansive with false bonhomie") for a lengthy stay in 1922 and then again in 1924. It had a profound effect on the Lawrence oeuvre.

Mabel reveals her emotional greediness along w a worldly
generosity. Frieda mothered, Mabel smothered. She fell madly in love w DHL. Never mind that after numerous lovers like John Reed she was in a 4th marriage to strong-silent American Indian Tony Luhan. What Mabel wanted, she usually got.

Another guest who pops is a Bloomsbury refugee, the youngish UK landscape painter Dorothy Brett who settled in Taos. Brett was deaf and waved an ear-trumpet. She too was besotted w DH. Mabel, DH & Co have campfire dinners, play charades ("DH loved to act and was perfectly unconscious about it"). They repaint outhouses, dip into thermal baths and ride into the blue yonder on horseback. On few occasions, Mabel had DH to herself, away from jealous Frieda. These three are caught in a furious, maddening, poignant love story, as recounted here in letters among them.

Sexual tensions mount. The power struggle for DHs physical body and creative soul is between dominating Mabel and unyielding DH. They analyze themselves and one another. Petty discords spread among all the larger-than-life players. Unreasonableness becomes hugely comic in any civilized society. What grips is the raw nakedness of passion, amid bursts of psychotherapy from star players, which gives this plotless memoir, pub in 1932, two years after DHs death, its originality.

DH blasting Mabel: "I cant stand a certain way you walk."
Mabel: "You want to kill me, that's what you want."
DH: "--Not exactly."

A line later Mabel blithely adds, "I remember the pleasure
of breaking down. We both enjoyed our morning, I think."

After DHL returns to Europe and Mabel focuses on the
handsome poet Robinson Jeffers, she tells DH, "I can only
write for someone and you are positively the only audience
I care to say anything to." She then informs us, "If I want
stability, I must create it -- and anything else I need."

Written with melodious assurance, the dominant stamp of her personality comes alive, enhanced by DHL-Mabel correspondence, and whirls the reader into an interior world with a nervy fever that won't quit.

[Jan · Rating 2 out of 5]

I read this memoir-with-letters as background for Rachel Cusk’s Second Place, which uses it as a framework for her Booker long listed novel. I see Luhan’s book as primarily a historical artifact. Neither of the two major players comes off well—not DH Lawrence, who’s seen as a neurotic, egotistical wife-beater, or Luhan, the wealthy arts patron who obsesses over him like a teenager in the throes of a crush. Redeemed slightly at the end as Lawrence’s letters express a bit of compassion and generosity.

[Jeffrey St. · Rating 5 out of 5]

The salon of heiress Mabel Dodge Luhan in outback of Taos New Mexico rivaled Gertrude Stein's Parisian loft. She lured to New Mexico Thomas Wolfe, Carl Jung, Aldous Huxley, Mary Austin, Willa Cather and some of the best painters of the 20th century, including O'Keefe, Marsden Hartley, John Marin and Andrew Dasburg. But looming above all of these was the figure of D. H. Lawrence, who came to the Luhan compound in 1922. Dodge's account of Lawrence's 12 months in New Mexico is a gossipy marvel, giving penetrating new insights into the mind and persona of one of my favorite writers. Perhaps because he didn't fall into her bed, Lawrence comes out as an infuriating character, petulant, paranoid, hysterical. A moody genius. Luhan is a gifted prose writer, who spares no one--including herself. A neglected classic of the Lost Generation.

[Lorna Dielentheis · Rating 4 out of 5]

It was really strange reading this a couple years after reading Rachel Cusk's "Second Place." This was both exactly what I thought it would be, and entirely different.

I expected this to be a rather dry recounting of Luhan's experiences in Taos with D.H. Lawrence. I expected to see similarities between this and Second Place, and for Second Place to emerge as a dramatized interpretation of the central relationship in this. I expected this to be potentially pretty boring.

Boy was I surprised when I began reading this. This was not dry at all, for the most part. In fact it was incredibly lively for a text consisting of, largely, collected letters interspersed with memoir.

I am shocked at how directly and heavily Second Place is based on this book-- down to the literal retelling of many individual scenes, descriptions of feelings, names of characters, and even the structure of the book and the way the entire recollection is addressed to a "Jeffers" whom we are never introduced to. I really can't believe it-- I did not expect that. I expected to see similar themes show up, similarities in the relationship between host and artist. Previous to reading this I would have said Second Place is inspired by this, or gives a nod to it. Now, I think I would have to classify Second Place as a direct retelling of this story.

I was also shocked that this memoir was actually MORE crazy than SP. By a lot! Some of the shit that happens in this book I could not believe, partially because of the events of the book occurring in the 1920s, partly because I just couldn't believe human beings would behave this way to each other, openly, even today? I have so many examples but in an effort to keep this review concise and spoiler-free I'll leave it at that.

Moving on from how my expectations were thwarted, I want to make a couple notes unrelated to SP.

I had a hard time understanding Mabel's obsession with Lorenzo. I think her fascination is what kept me going through the book, because I could never understand what she saw in him, what drew her to him in such a visceral way despite how unabashedly horrible he was. Unfortunately he just becomes more assuredly a complete asshole as the memoir goes on, and though Mabel does have a lot of anger towards him, she always goes back to him and yearns for him in a way that frankly boggles me. He is repulsive in every way, manipulative, patronizing, misogynistic, volatile, abusive. Why, Mabel?! It made this, at times, absolutely infuriating to read. But I think that is kind of the point.

Still, I can't quite wrap my head around the fact that these were all real people, and these are their actual letters, and their actual lives. Crossing oceans regularly via ship, living in many different countries (and continents!) and picking up people along the way who then intersect with your life perpetually. Falling out and making up and falling out and making up as though it were a normal part of friendship. Threatening to destroy and possibly kill one another and treating it like gossip. it just all feels kind of crazy.

I'd love to read an account of it all written by Tony! The only sane one among them.

[lindsey · Rating 4 out of 5]

I got this in preparation for a birthday trip to Taos. Covid got in the way of that trip happening, but I read the book so like I *kinda* went to Taos? I really enjoyed this book for the experience of it — being a fly on the wall watching artists navigate relationship dynamics and appreciate the land they were on. D. H. Lawrence is repetitively described as intoxicating and alluring, making him irresistible to Mabel. I did not understand what made him so great lollll he sounded like a MAJOR asshole to me the entire time. Just like, constantly insulting Mabel’s art and potential, plus being racist, sexist, and abusive. He seemed to hate everything about life lol. At the end of the book, we read facsimiles of his letters in which he begs Mabel (on several occasions!) to change the names of the people described in her memoirs. It’s kind of amazing to me that she followed that request up by publishing a whole book using his full name and likeness, intimately describing him in all of his stark undesirability. Like rock on girl.

[Steve Carter · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is my first reading of Mabel Dodge Luhan. I first heard of her long ago, but I don’t know from where. It might have been something as silly as Dennis Hopper buying her Taos house with the money from Easy Rider. (It’s a really nice house. One can see photo on the internet. Historical sight now.). She was a rich lady. This might have been the most important thing about her. Even in democratic bootstrap USA, this put her is a position of privilege. This is not so unusual. What is unusual is that she was the type of rich person interested in participating in bohemian culture. There is usually a supply of rich people interested in the arts, after all, if one doesn’t have to work one must do SOMETHING for amusement, to fill the time. The book has some reference to this with people including Lawrence suggesting that she do something, anything, like her own house chores rather than having servants do it. This for her own good. Because she is bored?
This memoir is of her relationship with novelist D H Lawrence. It was not a particular intimate relationship. It seems, by her account, that this was because of the emotional walls he built. They were not lovers or anything. It is a little unclear if she wanted him for a lover or not, but apparently this did not occur.
(I read this book after reading nonfiction book that has a lot of details in it about syphilis in the late 19th and early 20th century. That book How the Brain Lost Its Mind: Sex, Hysteria, and the Riddle of Mental Illness mentions some notable people who had syphillis and had to deal with the marginally effective to harmfull, treaments for it as well as the disturbing capasity for the disease to vanish in the body only to reapear more horribly later, maybe. The insane asylums of the late 19th and early 20th centuries were filled with people insane from syphilis. The book mentions her as a victim of the disease and it’s treatments without going into much detail. It says that she suppressed until later the memoir material that that struggle. Yet while reading in my mind, I knew that this was somewhere in the background on her text. Sexually transmitted disease in hard to eradicate since people have problem confronting sexuality directly.)

Her story is that she invited this famous English novelist to come live in New Mexico more or less as her guest. She is quite interested in the Indians. She wanted D H to be as well, to write a book about them so apparently the white Euro people would finally understand them. She wants him to be a sort of popularizer, in between interpreter, of the spiritual aspects of Indian culture. A rather tall order for an Englishman on his first trip to the USA. Did she think of this as a sort of commission?

Frieda and DH Lawrence were a globetrotting couple when they showed up in Taos. Globetrotting then consisted of steamships, and railroads, these new 19th century travel technologies. This sped things up considerably beyond the capacities of sail powered ships and pre-railroad land travel. The Lawrences have traveled around the world before they arrive in Taos from the west. They had just gone to try to live in Australia where Lawrence produced the novel Kangaroo, which I have written about earlier.
Mabel Dodge Luhan was married to an indian. She tells of how this occurred. She says he set up his tent outside her house and wouldn’t leave because he wanted her. And apparently he got her. So she has this kind of vague character of Tony, her husband, in the book, He the strong silent type so we never really know what he is thinking through all this. In a way, while acknowledging the cultural gap between the indigious, recently from basic hunter-gatherer, and the civilized white Euro types, she separates Tony enough from the others that he always seems remote and unknowable. We get her take on what Tony thinks of the Lawrences now and then and it’s usually that he doesn’t really like them around so much.

She goes into her motivation to draw them there. First with a kind of stock disturbing view that sounds like she is well trained by the patriarchy: “Only a man can change a woman from a devourer into a creator.” Really? Isn’t this kind of the other way around?
“Perhaps I had dimily and intuitively expected Larenzo to be the Transformer for me and had summoned him for that purpose from across the continents. Well, he had come. He had vivified my life and possibly I had done as much for him. But apparently nothing significant had come of it beyond the momentary illuminations that flashed between us and that always ended in the fretful and frustrating hours of bewilderment.”
This strikes me as an odd sort of buyer’s remorse. The man was an obsessed writer and in a complicated marriage in a forgien land, and he was a poor kid from the coal country in England. Way out of any familiar elements. Her expectations of him feel extreme.

As a reader of some of the novels of Lawrence I don’t think I would look at him at all as much of a savior or answer man for anyone really, not even for himself. He questions a lot and wonders about a better path. Yes, it seems spiritual in some way, and wonders about a connection to ancient ways of human association. He doesn’t provide a path to it. I can understand that Luhan would associate that with the world of the native Americans. I think she was trying to give insight from the indians to Lawrence and get something from him in return, become her “Transformer”.
He writes to her about some confused emotions he apparently thought she had between her feelings for Tony and DH.
“You need have no split between Tony and me: never: if you stick to what is real in your feeling in each direction. Your real feeling in two directions won’t cause any disharmony.--But don’t try to transfer to Tony feelings that don’t belong to him: admit all the limitations, simply. And never again try to transfer to me: admit the limitations there too.”

Included with the memoir are a number of letters Lawrence sent her. Some are part of the memoir itself, and several are dumped into the end. None of these at the end have any explanatory notes attached to them so it’s easy to be at a loss regarding some of things and people he refers to. These letters at the end of the book are all from after Frieda and DH left Taos for more traveling. (And seeing her children. Luhan does tell us that these two have a troubled relationship. Frieda had left a husband and three children to be with Lawrence who, according to this book, did not permit her to see the children. Yet in the letters from DH he talks about Frieda being off with her children and Frieda writes of this too. I don’t know the whole story. Luhan also mentions the hard time the Lawrences had with his fellow Brits and the government authorities during WWI because she was German. He writes about this extensively in Kangaroo.)

The end of the book letters are not really letters between close intimates. This whole book has the slight distaste of a woman trying to buy access to one of the great novelists of her day and that her plan just didn’t work out. After they leave Lawrence is more of less ill for the remainder of his life. He died very young, age 44. (I would like to think that he had a flash at the end of the eternal bonding with the basic at the very end as being maybe what he was searching for all along.)
After they are gone from Taos Luhan sends him part of her memoirs that she intends to publish. He is supportive and gives her input repeating this in letters. He tells her to publish it herself in consecutive letters and strongly suggests that she ought to change all the names of others in the text. It seems that she is writing about her Greenwich Village artist bohemian socialist salon days when she had a relationship with famous journalist John Reed.
He shares his notions about writing with power and conviction:
“Heaven knows what it is to be honest in writing. One has to write from some point of view, to leave all other aspects, from all the remaining points of view, to be conjectured. One can’t write without feeling--and feeling is bias. The only thing to put down on paper is one’s own honest-to goodness feeling.”

In this end letter section it is clear that the searching wealthy Luhan has continued to search. From reading his letters it is clear that she is really into Gurdjeff and keep trying to get Lawrence to go sit with him or whatever one did with Gurdjeff. DH is resistant all the way. He doesn’t want Gurdjeff, and is tired of a certain type of searching, but she keeps on telling him to go. He never does, of course.
By 1928 he has written Lady Chatterley’s Lover and tells her he plans to publish it himself of an uncensored version and needs the money. He prints 1000 copies to sell for $10 each. This of course worked out well, and he died two years later.

A mere two years after his death she publishes this book. She claims in the beginning that she sent it to Frieda who was OK with it and said that DH was better at the end. I assume she meant different from the not that pleasant depiction of Luhan’s, but this is all rather vague.

Reading this with little other information is like hanging out with someone who complains about someone else unknown to the listener. It is impossible to discern the truth of the matter in other people’s complicated relationships.

This book quite interesting at the beginning, but it slowed since it wasn’t all that deep and felt a little too gossipy-celebrity in an old school literature culture sort of way.

[Christina McLain · Rating 3 out of 5]

It has been said that there are two tragedies in life: not getting what you want and getting what you want. Mabel Dodge Luhan, I think, knew a lot about the latter. Born in the last part of the 19th century, Dodge Luhan was fabulously wealthy and wickedly unconventional, even by the standards of the louche 1920s. By her forties, she had been married four times and after setting up artistic salons in New York and Paris, she saw herself as a muse and mentor and seemed above all, to desire some kind of spiritual and emotional communion with a great artist, preferably a great male artist. Sooo.... in 1922 or thereabouts, she invited D. H. Lawrence and his wife Frieda to join her at her large house in Taos, New Mexico where she lived in air-conditioned, palatial splendour in the desert. She and her native American husband Tony spent weeks readying a guest house for the Lawrences.
When the writer and his wife finally arrived months later, he fought with her constantly and, needless to say, made her life very difficult. Luhan's account of the time DH and spouse spent in New Mexico was published about ten years later. At the time Dodge Luhan was considered to be something of a rich outcast and a joke but recently with the publication of Second Place an acclaimed novel by Rachel Cusk, based in some measure on this very story, her reputation has been, somewhat, elevated.

Lawrence, dubbed the "Priest of Love", for his novels Women in Love and the scandalous Lady Chatterly's Lover, was infamous for his raw and (in the case of Lady Chatterly's Lover), graphic depictions of the relationships between men and women. He believed the modern industrial world had caused people to lose their natural instincts and become prisoners of convention and conformity. In reality, according to what Dodge Luhan wrote, he was a bitter, angry man who seemed to find fault with everyone around him. He was argumentative and thin skinned and wanted always to be the centre of attention, the sage and saviour of modern society. He sometimes argued bitterly with his wife and on occasion, hit her. Most interesting and ironic was his attitude toward women, especially women who might be, in his scornful word, "dominant" --in other words those who might answer him back. And this went farther than conversation or attitude. At one point in his stay with Mabel, he insisted she wear a " feminine"pink gingham apron and loose flowing clothes like his wife did, clothes which Mabel felt were unflattering and uncomfortable. He insisted after a few weeks stay, on moving to another ranch nearby, yet wrote letter after letter inviting Mabel and her husband to tea or to visit him. Later, she discovered after his second stay with them (it seemed she wouldn't gave up) that he disparaged her and Tony to anyone who would listen and also wrote hateful letters and fictional stories about her.
This would all be awful except it appears that although Mabel paid a lot of lip service to Lawrence's greatness, in reality she could give as well as she got. In between her sentences about how she longed to be his muse and perhaps, lover, she dropped some very trenchant remarks about the misanthropic Priest. As for her husband he stayed away a lot, and may have had other fish to fry, as it were.
All of this, when you are able to discern what Mabel is saying as she borders on obscure psychobabble in her writing most of the time, makes for a rather comical read. No man is a hero to his valet and it seems, few artists once unclothed or unmasked are heroic either, or so it was anyway with Lawrence. Priest of Love, indeed.

[Christina]

Lie still and gradually let your body come to its own life, free at last of your will.

I’m glad Mabel didn’t change the names.

[Chris Miller · Rating 5 out of 5]

Mabel Dodge Luhan writes well and is pitiless in her efforts at honesty in her reminiscences. She drew many people to Taos, to promote the area and to revitalize the thinking and work of a number of significant writers, painters, and, as she says in another book, movers and shakers. But for a variety of reasons that she lays out in this book, D. H. Lawrence was one of her biggest coups. It was not the easiest of relationships that at its center included her; Lawrence; his wife, Frieda; his parvenue, Dorothy Brett; and Mabel's husband, Tony. In many ways, these talented and prolific characters lived and drew sparks from one another, over two lengthy visits. It was not always sweetness and light and they could be petty, mean and immature, but they survived and grew as persons and artists. It is a remarkable story with the bark on.

[Marilyn Boyle · Rating 5 out of 5]

Quite amazing, especially when read in conjunction with Rachel Cusk’s Second Place.

[Robert Watson · Rating 4 out of 5]

How very interesting to come to this via Rachel Cusk’s “Second place” especially as I had thought of Cusk’s work as very original and clever. Luhan’s book is, admittedly, acknowledged by Cusk . Having read this book written almost one hundred years ago, I can see that the structure,style and almost all the clever ideas came from Mabel Luhan. There are far too many examples for me to detail them in this short comment. In reading reviews of the Cusk novel I haven’t seen any that criticise her “borrowing” of Luhan’s original work. I am keen for someone with more literary knowledge than I, to comment as to whether this is acceptable and/or ethical. To her credit, Cusk does undoubtedly succeed in creating an intriguing short novel. It’s brevity seemed to add to it’s appeal.

[Kate Foster · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read this because I’d read Second Place by Rachel Cusk which is inspired by it, and I’m so glad I did. I found Mabel Dodge Luhan a fascinating character, seeming insecure and needy in her personal relationships but with a clear vision of why she wanted DH Lawrence to go to Taos. She loved the place and believed the world should know about its beauty and its cultural and spiritual significance, and she thought Lawrence was the one to achieve this. Of course, Lawrence being Lawrence, even though he loved the place as much as she did, couldn’t write to order and so ensued a battle of wills. He did write Mornings in Mexico in the end of course which brilliantly captures American Indian dances and rituals but explores Mexico as well as New Mexico. If you look up Mabel’s Taos home on YouTube it’s an incredible pueblo, keeping the character but with the addition of a 1920s socialite’s furnishings! I like Mabel’s style of writing, she describes the landscape vividly, I also like her bonkers psychoanalysis, and the way she tries to understand herself. And I like that she had a vision. After Lawrence’s death, his wife Frieda came back to Taos and supposedly enshrined his ashes in a tomb there, so the place clearly had a profound effect on them and Mabel is to be thanked for giving that to them. So many women over the years who have written about their relationship with Lawrence - Cusk merely used him as a device, but this is the real deal.

[Sarah Ahmad · Rating 4 out of 5]

i love that the cautionary tale of avoiding the male artist/writer/genius is timeless and evergreen. i think everyone in these memoirs is so fascinating and now i want to do a deep dive on all of them. mabel’s relationship to the indigenous people in new mexico is really interested as is her pull, especially during a time when travel (international at that) to new mexico is so particularly arduous. i think the most fascinating thing to me is how “errands” and administrative tasks were done back in the day when you weren’t as well connected as we are. relying on strangers and people you hire to manage your possessions and finances and properties, seems so difficult and yet, it seems to work out.

[Christa · Rating 3 out of 5]

At first it was entertaining. Then it got tedious. All the petty drama! Spoiled little rich girl wants moody artist all to herself. Has some historical interest, but the writing is tedious, from a different era. I did not enjoy the format - the majority of the book is letters. Made me wonder who was delivering all these missives and marvel at how reliable posting to all parts of the world was at that time. I only read this because I was curious about Rachel Cusk using it as the inspiration for her novel, Second Place. Well, it was more than inspiration - she basically stole the plot!

[Rhonda · Rating 5 out of 5]

Well this was a nice trip back in time. So glad I read an old 1932 hardback library copy, with yellowing deckle edge pages - rather than a new paperback copy!
Reading much of this made me feel like a proverbial fly on the wall. Not sure I’d really enjoy any of these characters around a dinner table , but from afar very tasty bits to be found.
The last letter from DHL to Mabel was poignant - written only a few months before his death. Almost worth the whole read.

[Kirsten Mickelwait · Rating 3 out of 5]

I read this book because I'm headed to Taos and wanted a refresher on Mabel Dodge Luhan. You should only read it if you're mildly obsessed with Luhan (which I am) or D.H. Lawrence. I found their relationship fascinating, but this is an epistolary story and the anachronistic writing styles can be a bit tedious. Not for the casual reader.

[Robert · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent. Anyone who doesn't book a flight to Taos right after reading this book has missed the point.

[Kai Coates · Rating 3 out of 5]

90% of my notes on this book are some variation of "D.H. Lawrence is a dick." However, I am a bit fascinated by Luhan now and want to visit her house in New Mexico.

[Alicatte · Rating 4 out of 5]

An invaluable source about DH Lawrence. So many indelible scenes.

[Aimee Ciancarelli · Rating 5 out of 5]

I needed this book right at this time. Mabel I see you

[Kallie · Rating 4 out of 5]

What a character Lawrence was! Very much as I would have expected from his novels. This has renewed my interest, and I intend to read more of that irascible soul's work. I could have done without and in fact skipped Mabel's awful poetry; nevertheless, I will try her memoirs since DHL seems to admire them (unless he is flattering her, which does not seem likely). Anyway, I read this because Rachel Cusk mentions that Lorenzo inspired her novel, Second Place (which I liked very much). Since the characters are very different (except for Tony) the resemblance is thin, but I can see how Lujan's accounts would be inspiring to Cusk.

[Margaux Chauvet]

I didn’t read this book. I read second place by Rachel cusk and needed to put a book down for my reading challenge 😎

[Gen · Rating 3 out of 5]

The story in first person about how a depressive and sickly DH Lawrence came to live in Taos, New Mexico, and his rocky relationship with socialite Mabel Dodge Luhan who tried to lure artists and writers to the town in the 20s and 30s. It was sometimes hard to follow but... you get the dynamic between the two.