Bristow, Gwen

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BRISTOW, Gwen

Born 16 September 1903, Marion, South Carolina; died August 1980

Daughter of Louis Judson and Caroline Winkler Bristow; married Bruce Manning, 1929

From childhood, Gwen Bristow intended to be a writer; her first story was written when she was six and her first appearance in print came when she was twelve. At Judson College in Alabama she wrote plays and ghostwrote required essays for her friends. After a year at the Pulitzer School of Journalism, Columbia University, she joined the staff of the New Orleans Times-Picayune, for which she reported a wide variety of stories. Her first published novels were four detective stories, written in collaboration with her husband Bruce Manning, also a journalist. One of them, the Invisible Host (1930), was filmed by Columbia in 1934 under the title, The Ninth Guest. In 1934 the Mannings moved to Hollywood, where Bristow's husband began a career as a screenwriter.

Around 1934 Bristow began the Plantation Trilogy (1937-40), her most important and most original work. The series, set in significant historical moments and using succeeding generations of the same family, epitomizes Southern history. Deep Summer (1937) shows how pioneering white settlers came from the southeast and from New England to the east bank of the Mississippi River. The land and their experiences change them, and the central family develops several branches: two wealthy, plantation-owning lines of descent, one landless poor white line, and one black line. The Handsome Road (1938), set in Civil War times, centers around an aristocratic young woman and a poor white girl, whose lives parallel each other in a number of aspects. Both are deeply hurt by the war and Reconstruction, although in different ways. Their growing enmity symbolizes the gulf between the classes they represent.

This Side of Glory (1940), set around World War I, tells of the marriage between a young man from the aristocratic family and a young woman from the poor white (now middle class) one. He is portrayed as a representative of the Old South, while she is a representative of the New; as Bristow says, he is a Southerner and she is an American. Their relationship is difficult because of their differences in character and heritage, but their successful alliance is meant to signify the eventual alliance of the traditions they represent.

Tomorrow Is Forever (1943; filmed by RKO in 1946) is a World War II propaganda novel, which uses a variant of the Enoch Arden story. Here the central character's first husband, thought dead in World War I, returns at the start of the second war. Concealing his identity, he permanently changes the life of his wife and her second family.

Bristow's other three novels are all historical, and they all deal with young women who lack the support of families but who are strong and find enough resources within themselves to build good lives. Jubilee Trail (1950; filmed by Republic in 1954) and Calico Palace (1970), both set in California during Gold Rush days, have very similar plotlines: a headstrong young woman rashly enters into a marriage that is happy but ends abruptly. Forced to fend for herself and her baby, the heroine discovers new strengths and develops old skills; her vitality and generosity enable her to form strong friendships with both women and men. Both novels conclude with the conventionally happy solution of marriage, but for neither woman is the marriage a retreat from autonomy and each man recognizes the value of the woman's assertiveness and strength. Celia Garth (1959), set in South Carolina during the revolutionary war times, contains another such protagonist; although the plotline is somewhat different, her character develops in a similar way.

Bristow's work is popular, of the sort generally considered romantic women's fiction. But her female protagonists are more rounded, more assertive and independent, more interesting than most in that genre. Her depiction of Southern history from the perspective of the poor white is a complement to the familiar myth of the magnolia-laden Old South. Her contribution is modest but significant.

Other Works:

The Alien, and Other Poems (1926). The Gutenberg Murders (with B. Manning, 1931). The Mardi Gras (with B. Manning, 1932). Two and Two Make Twenty-Two (with B. Manning, 1932). Gwen Bristow: A Self Portrait (1940).

Bibliography:

Taylor, M. G. S., "Gwen Bristow's Portrayal of the South in Times of Crisis" (thesis, 1972). Theriot, B. J., GwenBristow: A Biography with Criticism of Her Plantation Trilogy (dissertation, 1994).