* Photo credit to The Closet *
Just when you thought SVH couldn’t get more ridiculous, we get this story, which gives the impression that the twin birth of Elizabeth and Jessica Wakefield was an act of destiny (gag), considering that their parents’ ancestors nearly married each other 500 times.
So sixteen-year-old Swede Alice Larson, who is the most boring ancestor in this saga, dives overboard off the ship that’s taking her to America to save a drowning little boy. However, she almost gets herself killed in the process. Way to go, Larson! Luckily for her, English-born Theodore Wakefield is there to save the both of them, and thus begins their sweet but ill-fated romance. As soon as they get to New York, Theodore is whisked away into the immigration station and never seen again (although we know what happened to him!) , leaving Alice alone to pine like an evergreen in Minnesota, where she marries George Equally Boring and bears his children: Steven (who dies in infancy) and twins Elisabeth and Jessamyn. Oh, for the love of… Why am I acting like I’m so surprised at the lack of originality in this unimaginative fucking family?
Jessamyn is a wild child who’s obsessed with the circus and sneaks off to it dressed like a boy, although it’s never explained why she has to do that. Meanwhile, Elisabeth is just a bore, dating small town stud Tom Wilkens (you heard me). While Lis teaches ex-slaves how to read, Jess gets horse-riding lessons from a Native American named Peter Blue Cloud before she actually abandons her dull life to go join the circus. Lis gets lessons from PBC too, and when he’s on his death bed, she makes it her mission to go find Jess, wherever she may be, by hopping from train to train. She finally stumbles across her sister, the circus super star, and tries to show off for her twin by riding a horse, only to fall off it and die. (It’s always childbirth or horses that kill off most these characters.)
Jess moves out to San Francisco and manages a hotel, and meets two fine guys: Taylor Watson, owner of Watson Motor Company, and Bruce Farber, race car driver for the company. Taylor is good and sweet and totally in love with Jess, while Bruce is an unfaithful scoundrel with a dirty prepubescent mustache and Jess is naturally all over him. Bruce makes Jess promise to be his atop a hill during a picnic, and when I was a kid, I totally assumed they were screwing up there. Then the San Francisco earthquake hits, and Jess makes Bruce take her back to the hotel, where she has to force Bruce to save a little old lady, while Taylor appears and helps without even being asked. Then Bruce leaves Taylor to die, blah blah blah, and basically Jess realizes that Bruce is a coward and Taylor is a sexy beast and she and Taylor make out “in the ruin and misery of the burning, devastated city.” Sweet.
Then Jess and Taylor give birth to MOAR TWINZ: Amanda and Samantha. Amanda is the Elizabeth and Samantha is the Jessica for all you paying attention at home. They grow up during the Roaring Twenties and say lots of cliche, cringe-worthy things, such as “cat’s pajamas,” “giggle water,” and the like. Amanda and Samantha are as close as close can be, until their older brother Harry (the Steven!) brings home his college roommate, super fox Ted Wakefield (of whom Samantha says, “Don’t we know him or something? There’s something familiar about him. I feel like I met him somewhere a long time ago.” FATE!). He is meant for Sam, but he wants Amanda, and to avoid hurting Samantha, the two write each other sniveling love letters in secret. But Sam finds out and canoodles with some sleazeball to get him to plant booze in the trunk of Ted’s car during prohibition and lets Ted think that Amanda turned him in, then acts like it’s no big deal that she ruined her sister and Ted’s life. It’s some seriously effed up/insane Atonement type shit. Amanda vows never again to talk to Samantha, who moves to Hollywood to become a famous movie star, get married, and get knocked up all by the age of nineteen. Then Sam dies during childbirth. How unusual! I’m thinking that these Wakefield vaginas often just can’t accommodate the act of giving birth—it must be their unusual grail shape. So Sam’s dead and Amanda remains a spinster for the rest of her life.
Samantha’s kid—Marjorie—moves to France with her dad, who gets arrested for being involved with the Resistance during WWII and Marjorie is forced into hiding in a wine cellar with a girl named Sophy, whose brother Jacques is also in the Resistance. FYI: Jacques is hot and Marjorie wants him. Marjorie decides to join the Resistance too when Sophy gets captured, and her and Jacques cook up this ruse at a train station, but it all goes very not according to plan: Jacques winds up shot next to the railroad tracks while Sophy and Marjorie ride off on the five-fifteen. Sophy—whose entire family is dead—forces Marjorie to take her identification papers (“We look enough alike!”) and prances off to keep fighting the good fight, while Marjorie goes on to marry some soldier who gets about a paragraph of face time before their wedding, so why should I care?
Then Marjorie gives birth to stupid annoying Alice Robertson—a.k.a the future bride of Ned Wakefield and mother of hellspawn Elizabeth and Jessica. To be honest, I skimmed her part—it’s like Ned’s anyway, only extra sucky. And that brings us up to date!
Other Notes:
- I love how the doctor breaks the news to Lis that PBC is dying: “He is very, very old. I could give you one fancy diagnosis or another, but I think the truth is that it is his time to leave us.” And I think the truth is that the ghostwriter felt too bored with this story to even give PBC a reason why he’s dying. S/he couldn’t even be bothered to gain some fancy inspiration from Oregon Trail! Dysentery! Cholera! Rattlesnake bite! Give us something!
- This is how the book ends: “In their perfect, identical faces, Jessica and Elizabeth Wakefield held the secrets of the future.” If that doesn’t strike fear in your heart, well, I don’t know what will.
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