cover image Sanddollars: A Story of California's Pacific Valley

Sanddollars: A Story of California's Pacific Valley

Doris Campbell. Creative Arts Book Company, $14.5 (301pp) ISBN 978-0-88739-166-8

When Hannah Kramer's father brings shell-shocked WWI vet Clayton McLeod, a mail inspector for the Santa Fe railroad, home for dinner, the San Franciscan art teacher is immediately drawn to him and his stories of Sanddollar Beach, the Pacific Valley wilds where he intends to settle. But he is engaged to another; it takes eight years for this pious debut to pair up Hannah and Clayton, which occurs when he writes her of the deaths of his wife and stillborn son. Left alone with his seven-year-old daughter and needing a woman's touch, he courts Hannah by mail and she accepts, knowing life in the primitive log cabin won't be easy. As the newlyweds make their way by horseback and mule train into the sparsely populated part of the country, Hannah witnesses the lingering effects of Clayton's shell shock, which will also affect her life. Although Campbell includes a healthy dose of precise natural description, stilted dialogue, flat prose and an absence of psychological depth make for a two-dimensional but earnest work long on atmosphere but devoid of anything deeper. (Sept.)