“Now, Harry—”
“Please, Fritzi”—he spoke in a rush—“let me say what I came thousands of miles to say. I dreamed of this country long before I saw it. I dreamed of all the possibilities in America, and when I got here I discovered the freedom a man needs to make dreams come true. I discovered new dreams as well. The very air of this land induces visions of what can be. All my dreams have come true but one, and it’s the most important. You, Fritzi. Having you as my own. Being with you as long as I live. I’ve dreamed of it from the day we met in Central Park. I fell in love with you that day, but I couldn’t do a thing about it. Except write a song. ‘A Girl in Central Park.’ Now I’m free. I want to know, I must know, if there’s the slightest chance for me.”
A bee buzzed near her face. She waved it off.
“Harry, I don’t want to hurt you. You’re a fine, decent man, a dear man. You deserve honesty. I like you very much. I admire you enormously. But I don’t love you the way you want.”
Instead of disappointment he showed enthusiasm. “It isn’t necessary! You will in time, I’ll make certain of it. Don’t you see?” He held out the paper. “I wrote the song to say that.”
Fritzi rocked back on the wheelbarrow, laughing in spite of herself.
“I must say, you’re terribly confident.”
“Yes, I am. In this country dreams come true.”
She shook her head. “I don’t understand it. I mean, your fascination with—”
He tossed the music paper in the weeds, held her hand in both of his.
“You’re beautiful.”
“Oh, Harry, that’s not true.”
“Beautiful—to me, from the very first.”
Fritzi’s blond hair tossed in the sunshine. “No one’s ever said that to me.”
“Then you are long overdue to hear it.”
Looking at him with a new, wondering tenderness, she laughed again, deep in her throat. “You almost make me believe I might be, in another life, another century, perhaps.”
“This life. This century.” He drew her up from the rusted wheelbarrow. “Now.”
“Harry, they’re all watching—”
“I don’t give a hang. I love you. You’re beautiful. Believe it. I have love enough for two. Help me finish the song, Fritzi. Help me, and I’ll make sure you never have a single regret,” he said as he bent to kiss her.
AFTERWORD
I am happy to deliver at last the further adventures of the Crown family of Chicago. To the steady stream of mail from readers who liked Homeland there has been added e-mail, an average of a message every day or so (yesterday’s came from a reader in Australia), asking about “the next book.” That kind of inquiry is always heartening, but at the same time it creates a guilty conscience over delays.
I enjoyed writing American Dreams as much or more than I’ve enjoyed anything I’ve done, for two reasons. First, the period immediately preceding World War I is fascinating. An old order was dying, but few realized it. Barbara Tuchman in The Proud Tower used the word sunset to describe the process, and the moment. In little more than ten years, America, and the world, went from idyllic golden summers of peace to the bleak and bloody winter of war—war so apocalyptic, so destructive, it could hardly be imagined by most of those living at the time.
Second, with this book I happily engaged in writing a valentine to a group of people for whom I have boundless affection: all the men and women who pit themselves against the perils of the acting profession. Having started out with ambitions to be an actor, I shared Fritzi’s struggle every step of the way. I also found her great company.
As always, the story’s background and events are grounded in the historical record. In a few instances I have done a time shift with some real people, moving certain film actors and directors backward or forward by as much as a year for purposes of the story. In no case did I falsify what these people did, unless it’s a case of an actor playing in an obviously fictional picture.
Fort Lee, New Jersey, was the movie industry’s first “Wild West” location. Patents Company detectives did pursue and harass independent filmmakers, sometimes known as blanket companies, for the reason described. This continued until about 1915, when government action destroyed the trust forever.
D. W. Griffith’s Birth of a Nation is rightly considered a masterpiece and, at the same time, virulently racist. When the great director adapted Thomas Dixon’s novel, our country was only a half century removed from the war that tore us apart, redefined personal liberty, and set us on a new and better course. Passions still ran high among the defeated, one of whom was Griffith’s father. Attitudes reflected in his epic film regrettably persist and trouble our land to this day.
Charlie Chaplin never served in the British military. Ultimately he was deemed too valuable as a morale builder. No films were more popular with the troops than Charlie’s.
Fritzi’s idol, Ellen Terry, stepped before the camera for the first time in 1916. She appeared in a British Ideal Film Company vehicle called Her Greatest Performance, playing a stage star who used her thespian skills to save a friend wrongly accused of murder. Dame Ellen went on to appear in other pictures before her career ended, and I suspect Fritzi would derive a certain satisfaction from this surrender to the medium.
Books by the British film historian Kevin Brownlow marvelously evoke and chronicle the era of silent films. Even better is the Thames Television production Hollywood, written and directed by Brownlow and his colleague David Gill. The thirteen hours, narrated by James Mason, were shown originally in the U.S. on PBS. Hollywood spans thirty years, covers every aspect, from stunts to sex scandals, and with rare footage vividly demonstrates why silent pictures became, in the last few years before The Jazz Singer, a high art form understood and loved around the world. You can find this splendid series in a boxed set in many video catalogs.
The descriptions of Ford Motor Company’s Piquette Avenue plant are based on floor plans from the Henry Ford Museum. These were drawn from memory in 1953 by a man who worked at the plant.
New York subway trains still pass through the most beautiful of all the original stations, City Hall. But no trains have stopped there for some time, and the station is closed to the public.
Basic preparation for American Dreams was done at the Thomas Cooper Library, University of South Carolina, where I am privileged to be a Research Fellow in the Department of History. Dr. George Terry and the library’s staff of professionals are unfailingly helpful.
Local librarians who must be thanked include Donna Errett, director of the Hilton Head Island Branch Library, and her staff; Jan Longest at the library of the University of South Carolina/Beaufort branch on Hilton Head; and the staff of the Greenwich, Connecticut, public library under the direction of Elizabeth Mainiero.
Others who provided specialized information include my friend and colleague Ken Follett; Carl and Denny Hattler; my son-in-law Bruce Kelm of Santa Rosa, and master brewer Tim O’Day; my friend and sometime writing partner, the composer Mel Marvin; my son-in-law Dr. Charles Schauer of Jacksonville; the ever reliable Dan Starer in New York City; my friend and neighbor Willis O. Shay, Esq.; my colleague in Western Writers of America, Dale L. Walker of El Paso; and Raymond Wemmlinger, librarian and curator of the Hampden-Booth Theater Library at The Players in New York. Special thanks also to the Panhandle-Plains Historical Museum of Canyon, Texas.
As always, I must state that no person or institution named should be held responsible for the final utilization of material. Sole responsibility for that is mine.
For special thanks I single out four people whose encouragement, enthusiasm, and editorial insights helped move the book along at various stages: In London, Barbara Boote of Little, Brown UK, and Andrew Nurnberg, my overseas literary agent; in New York, attorney Frank R. Curtis, Esq., and Genevieve Young.
At my publisher, Dutton NAL, I am very much in debt to my editor, Danielle Perez, whose superb story sense and swift #3 pencil made completion of the
manuscript a pleasure. I likewise thank Elaine Koster for her faith in this book.
I also thank Herman Gollob, who helped me conceive and shape the Crown family, edited Homeland and, before his retirement, contributed substantially to the planning of this novel. Julian Muller, Joe Fox, Herman Gollob: in the last fifteen years I have been fortunate to have been edited and coached by three of the great gents of publishing.
Last, as always, I thank my wife, Rachel, for her assistance, and her loving support and encouragement, which never falters.
—JOHN JAKES
Hilton Head Island, SC—St. John, USVI—Greenwich, CT October 2, 1995—September 25, 1997
www.johnjakes.com
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