The Western Shore

by Clarkson Crane

The Western Shore (1925) is a novel by Clarkson Crane. Written while the author was living in a cramped Paris apartment, The Western Shore appeared at an exciting time of literary experimentation and achievement among American expatriates in Europe. Condemned for its realistic portrayal of campus life, featuring homosexual characters and sharp critiques of government and academic institutions, The Western Shore proved a costly gamble for Crane’s literary career. Although he would publish several more novels throughout his lifetime, Crane never achieved the recognition he deserved as a pioneering LGBTQ figure in American literature. Most novels of American college life focus on the nostalgia of the campus experience, the parties, friendships, and romances which accumulate to shape and change young lives, for better and for worse. In The Western Shore , Clarkson Crane refuses to look back on his undergraduate days with rose-tinted glasses, instead presenting a warts-and-all portrait of his diverse cast of characters. Milton Granger comes from a prominent family of intellectuals and academics. Carl Werner, a veteran of the First World War, struggles to obtain health benefits from the government he risked his life to serve. George Towne, a poor student and unrepentant cheater, tries not to flunk out of Berkeley for the third―and likely final―time. Perhaps most interesting of all is the lecturer Burton, an openly gay man who makes an impression on his students―Granger most of all. With a beautifully designed cover and professionally typeset manuscript, this edition of Clarkson Crane’s The Western Shore is a classic work of American literature reimagined for modern readers.

Genres: LGBT

303 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1925

Reviews

[Keith Skinner · Rating 4 out of 5]

I first read this book about 20 years ago and recently reread it in preparation for a literary walk of Berkeley, CA. The four star rating is based on it's value as a source of local Berkeley history and culture rather than it's literary value, but read on for clarification because that is a very simple statement for what I think is a more complicated issue.

Perhaps as interesting as Clarkson Crane's story itself is the book's introduction by Oscar Lewis that relates young Crane's journey as a writer and his struggles to get his book published. It's an important story (the introduction) because Crane was what I would characterize as an archetypal Berkeleyan, a product of a reasonably wealthy family who spent most of his life seeking a more creative lifestyle and relied heavily on generosity of his family to do so. That backstory proves valuable once the reader ventures into the story of a group of friends, Cal students, in the early 20th century.

It's best to approach the story with a generous attitude to avoid being frustrated by the first half of a book. It's filled with often inane dialogue that reminded me of an early Faye Wray movie. However, Crane eventually introduces all his characters and settings and the story gathers steam. We are treated to an excellent depiction of life in the Bay Area in 1919. The description of jumping aboard a Key System train in the hills, being shunted down to the ferry at the Berkeley Pier, and across the bay, past Goat Island (what is now known as Yerba Buena Island) and into the bustle of San Francisco's financial district is good stuff, an excellent record of the times. Crane also gives us scenes in the hills and on campus with his friends, descriptions of looking across the hills at Marin and Vallejo. As for interactions among the characters, they're filled with offensive snobbishness and discrimination: the "Chinaman" cook who asks, "You likee?" The professor that most of the friends are sure is "queer." Much of this was intentional on Crane's part. An underlying disapproval of fratboy lifestyle is present throughout the book.

The story itself, aside from these insights into period life, is rather trite. Crane's prose, at times, reaches an inspired state but is often mired in dull minutiae that adds little to the story. Knowing his background and struggles with the book, it's likely the manuscript just needed a good editor and never got one. All in all, it's a worthwhile read for anyone interested in Bay Area life and history.

[ALEARDO ZANGHELLINI · Rating 4 out of 5]

I loved this book. It is a sensitive account of life at UC Berkeley in the 1920s, specifically of the inner world and interactions of a group of students and one teacher. There is a painterly quality to the author’s description of the bay area and campus settings, but it’s a painting in soft focus, as it were - impressions of the environment are always either refracted through, or a foil to, the characters’ feelings and cogitations. I certainly disagree with another reviewer that the dialogue is inane: it is its realism that perhaps makes it come across as such. The characters, or some of them, seem to fit into types, but they are types endowed with much individuality: you feel that the author is familiar with all their innermost moving principles. Given these undeniable virtues, the main question in order for me to fully enjoy the novel was: Is Milton Granger same-sex attracted? [SPOILER ALERT] Happily, there are sufficient hints here and there to conclude that the likeable Milton, albeit not caring for Burton’s attempts at physical contact, is in fact same-sex attracted and will in due course be alive to this side of himself. The question was crucial to me because the one character who is indubitably gay (Burton) is a little creepy; for the novel to have other, less flawed, same-sex attracted characters means that it is able to transcend the limitations of its time and speak to a less homophobic present.

[Leslie Reiber · Rating 4 out of 5]

Campus life, Berkeley, ... in the early 1920s. An unsentimental view of a group of young men, it is also, to a modern reader, an historically informative picture of the Bay Area that was.

[Jeff · Rating 4 out of 5]

Having been in the throes of reading over 100 campus novels, I'm finding that they begin to blur together rather quickly and easily. Most are obscure and more are near impossible to find. The Western Shore qualifies in both categories but I found it actually a kind respite from the usual at best mundane writing of the genre. Crane, though nearly unknown, actually has a decent command of the literature. There is a lot of western sentimentalism, surely inspired by the Bay, that, I think, accurately reflects life there while simultaneously considering student experience at Berkeley.

The subtle exploration of homosexual relationships and women's issues could be expanded, but give a fuller impression of early 20th century reality than the book's more prosaic cousins.