SARATOGA TRUNK

The undervalued American novelist inspired many Broadway productions and Hollywood films including Showboat and this novel Saratoga Trunk, which became a classic film starring Gary Cooper and Ingrid Bergman. It is set around the 1869 Railroad Wars that took place in Upstate New York concerning the necessary developments for reliable railway lines, and the brutality and lawlessness that were accepted in late 19th, early 20th century Texas and New York. The two main characters are Clio Dulaine, an ambitious Creole beauty who more than meets her match in Clint Maroon, a handsome Texan with a head for business and an eye for beautiful women. At the start of the book they are the celebrated glamour couple now in their seventies, with Clint wishing to tell the truth about how rich men got rich by evil means and to burst the bubble on their fame and tell the truth. The devoted journalists only want the glamour and not the dirt. Clio is from Paris and New Orleans and the interplay between the couple is delicious in this lively tale of ambition and love that celebrates the triumph of outsiders against the powerful and corrupt. Together they do battle with Southern gentry and Eastern society, but in their obsession to acquire all they ever wanted, they fail to realise they already have all they'll ever need - each other. An enthralling saga of love, greed and power set in New Orleans and Saratoga. 286pp, paperback.