Alas, this was not the Green Dolphin I was looking for. There is a jazz standard by this name that I love, and I know it was featured in a movie, based on a novel of the same name. Well, almost the same name. What I was looking for was Green Dolphin Street, based on an historical novel set in New Zealand. So imagine my surprise when I pick up the book I had ordered from the library, and see the cover featuring a mid-century woman, leaning across a bar, with cigarette in hand. Hmmm. This don’t look right. What a difference a preposition can make.
Well, so I read the thing anyway. Mary and Charlie van der Linden are a British couple, stationed in Washington DC. He’s a diplomat, and she is the accessory wife. Being as this is the end of the 1950s, this situation is the norm. Their life is beginning to shred at the seams though, because he’s addicted to pills and booze, and it’s getting worse. She meets an old friend of the husband, American journalist Frank Renzo, at a party one night, and she agrees to let him show her the sights of New York City. She runs up there from time to time to shop anyway, but she might as well have company. Aaaand I think you can see where we are going from there.
What I did like. This is an interesting period of time – the 1950s shading into the 1960s, and from what I remember (why yes, I was almost 10), Faulks hits the vibe just right. The American presidential campaign is front and center in both the journalistic and diplomatic worlds, and the Nixon/Kennedy duel signaled a definite changing of the guard.
What I didn’t like. I didn’t buy Mary at all. Seemed like the perfect woman some guy would dream up. What can I say, she just never rang true. So there’s that.