FANDOM NAME: When Washington Was in Vogue - Edward Christopher Williams
WHAT MAKES IT GREAT:
Do you like fizzy comedies of manners? Do you like the upper crust going to parties and bragging about their clothes, and houses, and cars? Do you like marriage drama, about whether or not the youngest daughter is going to snag that doctor? Other tropey romance elements, like misunderstandings and dancing with others to make the love interest jealous? What about flappers and all the 1920s atmosphere you could want? Epistolary novels and novels that pretend to be about real events? A great m/m ship! A great f/f ship! Incest potential for another good f/f ship!
This novel is outrageously entertaining to read and full of tropey romance elements. The main character (Davy Carr) is more than a little oblivious to the flirting of the wild-child flapper (Caroline Rhodes) who is in love with him. They have a bantering, teasing relationship, but she trusts him absolutely and he’s the one she goes to when she’s in trouble. He in fact comes to his rescue, when a dastardly rogue is trying to take advantage of her and her bestie in an Atlantic City gambling hall. Their dynamic is a lot of fun, with Davy old-fashioned and a little academic, with a stubborn and no-nonsense core, and Caroline very thoroughly modern (for the 1920s).
The novel is not all that feminist, but that doesn’t stop Caroline from being an amazingly compelling character. She smokes, she drinks, she hangs out with men and steals Davy’s cigarette holder. Davy scolds her by saying that if he was her father, he'd spank her, and she keeps that joke alive flirtatiously for some time.
If you prefer f/f ships, Caroline and her best friend Tommie have a huge amount of intimacy with one another. Tommie is always looking out for Caroline and a definite steadying influence to Caroline’s wildness. Tommie is sweet and kind to Caroline’s sauciness, and so beautiful that Davy says she’s the loveliest brown girl he ever did meet. To give you some idea of Caroline and Tommie’s dynamic, before introducing Davy to Tommie, Caroline very seriously warned Davy not to be unkind to her friend because she is so plain, confusing the hell out of Davy.
If you like m/m ships, the whole novel is told in letters from Davy to his war buddy and best friend Bob Fletcher, and the letters are intimate and even sexually charged enough that the introduction calls out the homoeroticism. In fact Caroline at one point says to Davy that she has no idea what all he writes to Bob and that she had assumed the fat letters were to “his best girl.”
If you like incest, Caroline and her older sister have a combative, competitive relationship that personally, could very well be improved with the addition of some kissing.
The end game ships are Caroline/Davy and Tommie/Bob, but all four of the characters have such enormous affection for each other than the poly foursome is also really compelling. There are many scenes where every combination of these four are together, affectionately talking about the others.
And oh yeah, did I mention? Every single one of these characters is Black. The novel doesn’t have a single white character. It is entirely set in the Black upper crust of 1920s Washington. It mentions race relations, the problems of colorism, and the various ways that systematic anti-Blackness touches all their lives, but the story is far more of a romance than a social commentary. But, if you’re interested in writing or requesting a fic that draws that out, there is a lot of opportunity here.
A specific thing I love about how Blackness is treated in the novel is that Davy is explicitly and happily into Caroline’s darker skin, really pushing back against some pretty relentless colorism of the period. Davy spends a lot of time examining the colorism of the people around him, thinking about white passing, and otherwise considering these issues of anti-Blackness which are more about intra-Black community relations and it is a really interesting take on issues common to a lot of Harlem Renaissance novels.
WHERE CAN I FIND IT?: The only downside of this canon is that it doesn’t appear to exist digitally at all. There is an in-print edition that is fairly easy to get ahold of, but no ebook. It’s worth it, though, honestly, even if you don’t want to write for it—I sat down to read it and tore through it in one sitting, it was so delightful.
no subject
WHAT MAKES IT GREAT:
Do you like fizzy comedies of manners? Do you like the upper crust going to parties and bragging about their clothes, and houses, and cars? Do you like marriage drama, about whether or not the youngest daughter is going to snag that doctor? Other tropey romance elements, like misunderstandings and dancing with others to make the love interest jealous? What about flappers and all the 1920s atmosphere you could want? Epistolary novels and novels that pretend to be about real events? A great m/m ship! A great f/f ship! Incest potential for another good f/f ship!
This novel is outrageously entertaining to read and full of tropey romance elements. The main character (Davy Carr) is more than a little oblivious to the flirting of the wild-child flapper (Caroline Rhodes) who is in love with him. They have a bantering, teasing relationship, but she trusts him absolutely and he’s the one she goes to when she’s in trouble. He in fact comes to his rescue, when a dastardly rogue is trying to take advantage of her and her bestie in an Atlantic City gambling hall. Their dynamic is a lot of fun, with Davy old-fashioned and a little academic, with a stubborn and no-nonsense core, and Caroline very thoroughly modern (for the 1920s).
The novel is not all that feminist, but that doesn’t stop Caroline from being an amazingly compelling character. She smokes, she drinks, she hangs out with men and steals Davy’s cigarette holder. Davy scolds her by saying that if he was her father, he'd spank her, and she keeps that joke alive flirtatiously for some time.
If you prefer f/f ships, Caroline and her best friend Tommie have a huge amount of intimacy with one another. Tommie is always looking out for Caroline and a definite steadying influence to Caroline’s wildness. Tommie is sweet and kind to Caroline’s sauciness, and so beautiful that Davy says she’s the loveliest brown girl he ever did meet. To give you some idea of Caroline and Tommie’s dynamic, before introducing Davy to Tommie, Caroline very seriously warned Davy not to be unkind to her friend because she is so plain, confusing the hell out of Davy.
If you like m/m ships, the whole novel is told in letters from Davy to his war buddy and best friend Bob Fletcher, and the letters are intimate and even sexually charged enough that the introduction calls out the homoeroticism. In fact Caroline at one point says to Davy that she has no idea what all he writes to Bob and that she had assumed the fat letters were to “his best girl.”
If you like incest, Caroline and her older sister have a combative, competitive relationship that personally, could very well be improved with the addition of some kissing.
The end game ships are Caroline/Davy and Tommie/Bob, but all four of the characters have such enormous affection for each other than the poly foursome is also really compelling. There are many scenes where every combination of these four are together, affectionately talking about the others.
And oh yeah, did I mention? Every single one of these characters is Black. The novel doesn’t have a single white character. It is entirely set in the Black upper crust of 1920s Washington. It mentions race relations, the problems of colorism, and the various ways that systematic anti-Blackness touches all their lives, but the story is far more of a romance than a social commentary. But, if you’re interested in writing or requesting a fic that draws that out, there is a lot of opportunity here.
A specific thing I love about how Blackness is treated in the novel is that Davy is explicitly and happily into Caroline’s darker skin, really pushing back against some pretty relentless colorism of the period. Davy spends a lot of time examining the colorism of the people around him, thinking about white passing, and otherwise considering these issues of anti-Blackness which are more about intra-Black community relations and it is a really interesting take on issues common to a lot of Harlem Renaissance novels.
WHERE CAN I FIND IT?: The only downside of this canon is that it doesn’t appear to exist digitally at all. There is an in-print edition that is fairly easy to get ahold of, but no ebook. It’s worth it, though, honestly, even if you don’t want to write for it—I sat down to read it and tore through it in one sitting, it was so delightful.