Beginners Luck

by Emily Hahn

[Annotated with a new author bio]

“Another hour was coaxed out of eternity. The sun crept farther into the warm house; out in the street was a growing rush of motorcars and sometimes a clatter of hoofs; the tap in the sink dripped with a cheerful chiming splash on the tumbled china. He whistled and painted.”

This short novel captures the vibrant essence of Santa Fe during the Harvey Indian Detours era. Emily Hahn, better known for her globetrotting memoirs, worked as a Harvey Girl herself, and imbues this fictional narrative with a cynicism that is missing from other, more romanticised novels about the era. The work is raw and genuine, particularly in portraying the experiences of a young, single woman embracing the era's adventurous spirit, complete with parties, drinks, and dalliances with unsuitable men. Hahn also weaves the lives of aspiring male artists into the tapestry of Santa Fe's bohemian culture.

While the novel's plot may seem convoluted and open-ended, it offers a compelling portrayal of the time and place, rich in vivid settings and lifestyle descriptions. Though fictionalized, Hahn's firsthand experience infuses authenticity into the text, offering a captivating glimpse into a bygone era.

123 pages, Paperback

First published August 23, 2013

About the author

Emily "Mickey" Hahn was called "a forgotten American literary treasure" by The New Yorker magazine; she was the author of 52 books and more than 180 articles and stories. Her father was a hardware salesman and her mother a suffragette. She and her siblings were brought up to be independent and to think for themselves and she became the first woman to take a degree in mining engineering from the University of Wisconsin. She went on to study mineralogy at Columbia and anthropology at Oxford, working in between as an oil geologist, a teacher and a guide in New Mexico before she arrived in New York where she took up writing seriously. In 1935 she traveled to China for a short visit and ended up by staying nine years in the Far East. She loved living in Shanghai and met both Mao Tse-tung and Chou En-lai. She became the lover of Zau Sinmay, an intellectual, whom she particularly liked for his overwhelming curiosity about everything, she felt it rubbed off on her, and together they founded the English-language magazine Candid Comment. During her time in China she learned to smoke opium, persisting for two years until, inevitably, she became addicted; she was then cured by a hypnotist.

In Hong Kong Hahn met Major Charles R. Boxer, a married British intelligence officer; in 1940 she became pregnant and they had a daughter, Carola. Boxer was captured by the Japanese after being wounded in the attack on Hong Kong; Hahn visited him as much as possible in his prisoner-of-war camp, until she and Carola were repatriated to the United States in 1943. On his release they got married and in 1946 they arrived in Dorset where she called herself a "bad housewife". Although Boxer continued to live in England, where he became Professor of Portuguese at London University, Hahn lived mostly in America as a tax exile.

Reviews

[Alok · Rating 4 out of 5]

Will never be the best book read for anyone, But got some thing young and touchy that we all can read and relate to. Some lines are so perfect and they are thrown here and there, nothing much to complain about what is inside. But what it is,is not great and it is just what it is. I just read it at the right time ,for a book like this the right time is uneventfully routine time.

[Mary]

I won't rate it because I didn't finish it. But now that I have read more about Emily Hahn I may want to try again.