Pacific Street

By Cecelia Holland

Book Overview

A small black woman and an Indian carpenter form a conspiracy against an enticing blond performer for the Shining Light saloon, in a vivid tale set against the backdrop of the ramshackle, half-built... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0395561442
• ISBN13: 9780395561447
• Release Date: January 1992
• Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
• Length: 260 Pages
• Weight: 1.24 lbs.
• Dimensions: 9.2" x 6.3" x 1.0"

Customer Reviews

Good portrait of early San Francisco

This book accurately portrays the corruption and violence of the Gold Rush-era San Francisco. In a town where groups of power-hungry, greedy men strive for wealth and enforce their own version of law (part of the story is about the "Vigilance Commitee" -- which gave us the word Vigilante, who would now be called fascists), both poor whites and people of color strive just to survive. I commend Holland for having this story revolve around the aptly named Frances Hardheart, an escaped slave and founder of the "Shining Light," a sort of nightclub run and staffed by people of color. Frances is manipulative and greedy, one half of the equation that makes the Shining Light a haven. The other half is a Pomo named Mitya, a man with a very troubled past and often violent nature, but who has a good heart. Mitya not only protects the Shining Light from enemies (in one memorable seen he bites off the nose of a sailor who has entered the establishment to "Shanghai" people), but also builds the whole place using carpentry skills he learned at Fort Ross. There are other characters in the story, like the kind-hearted white man Gil Marcus, and the villian Tierney Rudd, but the soul of the story is Mitya, a very complex character. In fact, the only problem I have with the novel is that throughout it Mitya speaks in broken English -- a fact easy attributed to the fact that it is not his native language, and one that Holland even tries explaining away by saying this is how he "made the language his own." But to me it seemed to be too much of the stereotypical "Me-like-heapum-whiskey" Indian talk. Mitya is obviously an intelligent and complex man, and I kept expecting his speech to improve as the novel progressed, but my expectations were dashed. In any case, despite this one minor flaw, this book is a great read to anyone interested in early Californian history.