JACK LONDON IN PARADISE
By Paul Malmont
Simon & Schuster Paperbacks
383 pgs
In this book, Paul
Malmont imagines London’s last trip to Hawaii which lasted from
Dec of 1915 through July of 1916. At which time he and his second wife Charmian
returned to their Sonoma ranch in California where he
would die four months later, Nov. 22nd. The tale is a mixture of recorded facts with
fictional encounters created by Malmont to weave the tale of a great man’s
final days in the place he came to love as a Paradise
on earth.
The story begins
with silent screen actor turned director and producer, Hobart Bosworth. Having
made several movies based on London’s work,
Bosworth has fallen on hard times and his small studio is about to be gobbled
up by Paramount
unless he can produce another winner and alleviate his debt. His idea; have London write an original
screenplay that has never been published in print. Bosworth flies to London’s beauty ranch only
to learn the adventure writer is gone. Wolf House, the $80,000 stone mansion
meant to be the gem of the estate had burned down two weeks before the Londons were to move in.
Bosworth discovers his friend is in Hawaii
and immediately books passage on a tramp steamer for the islands.
It is clear from the
offset; Bosworth is as much a protagonist as is London though little known by today’s
audiences. Once the desperate “Dean of Hollywood”, as he was called, finds the
world weary and ailing writer, the story becomes about two old friends doing
their best to stave off aging and remain the rough and tumble adventurers of
their youths. It is about loves, won and lost and the dreams realized and those
lost. The characters are all in one way or another broken souls seeking
salvation. And what better setting such a tale then the majestic islands which
prove to be the ideal background, an earthly paradise in which these lost souls
come together one last time before the curtain falls.
We will not soon forget, “Jack London in Paradise.”
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