Lawrence Clark Powell

The Holly and the Fleece is the story of a quest for the red-berried California holly called toyon by the Spanish, and for the legendary golden fleece of the argonauts. The searcher is a bohemian academic, rich in worldly rewards and yet bent on pushing his marriage to the edge to realize his birthright creativity. In writing this book he cut his prose to the bone, determined to go naked the rest of the way. The idyllic setting is a canyon in the Santa Monica range as yet unsung in literature. The other man in the story is a developer who lusts to bulldoze the mountains from the city to the sea. Here are the impossible choices man faces. Where lies fulfillment when two are needed and only one may be had?

The collected four novels with notes (1930-50) on his writing by Powell. The Blue Train: A young American man has a series of romantic relationships in the late 1930s with women in Paris, and then one in London. The river between: An elderly history professor, snow-bound in his mountain cabin with a young graduate student who is making a study of his creative career, tells the story of his love affair with the daughter of an Indian bruja, a tale fraught with hatred, intrigue, and witchcraft. El Morro: A beautiful but troubled Englishwoman, Arla Bay, travels to New Mexico to see the famed sandstone monument El Morro, and becomes involved with William Stone, a park ranger. Portrait of my father: The distinguished essayist presents an account, in fictionalized form, of his quest to unravel the puzzling life story of his father--a scientist and citrus company executive with a secret past in Paris.

Author relates the importance of libraries and books, comparing their value to that of mother's milk.

To most people who knew him, G. Harold Powell was a brilliant scientist, a pomologist who helped shape the citrus industry of Southern California as general manager of the Sunkist Cooperative. But to his immediate family, and particularly to his son Laurie, Powell was a mystery. He died when Laurie was still a youngster, leaving behind a number of unsolved puzzles. Not until fifty years after the man's death did Lawrence Clark Powell finally begin to know his father. By now, young Powell was a distinguished man of letters in his own right. While staying in Paris, he came upon some letters and other documents revealing the truth about the elder Powell's private life--and private affairs. G. Harold Powell, it appears, had also spent time in Paris. Thus, the novelization begins.