The Adventures of John Carson in Several Quarters of the World by Brian Doyle

John, the Muse

You may know that Robert Louis Stevenson is the famed author of The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, Kidnapped, Treasure Island, and other tales.   But did you know that this sickly Scottish author stayed in a boarding house in San Francisco at the end of 1879 until the spring of 1880, waiting for his true love, Fanny, to finalize the end of her marriage to a philandering husband? During that time, Stevenson wrote furiously trying to earn money for life with his soon-to-be bride and her kids, who were across the bay in Oakland.  He cranked out essays, penned about his own travels across America, wrote the novella Prince Otto, and contemplated writing The Adventures of John Carson in Several Quarters of the World. While no draft of the book actually exists, Brian Doyle took up the challenge to write what could have been another of Stevenson’s masterpieces. 

In the old, floriferous, wordy, and opulent style of Robert Louis Stevenson, Brian Doyle fleshed out John Carson, sailor and husband of Mary, who was the owner of the rooming house in San Francisco.  John Carson and Robert Stevenson would sit by the fire in the cold winter evenings where John skillfully weaved the tales of his treks through Borneo, encounters in Australia, Ireland, and other locales to answer Stevenson’s simple question of how John and Mary met.  And like clockwork, just when John got to a particularly interesting or perhaps revealing part of his narrative, Mary would interrupt and call everyone to supper. The story picked up another day with Mary adding her own history. Stevenson was so enthralled with the adventures he’d rush up to his room to lay it all out on paper with the intention of writing a book about it later. 

I really enjoyed not only getting caught up in John’s travels, but also learning about Robert Louis Stevenson’s time in San Francisco, the imaginings of how he embraced the salty, windy, misty city and of course, his ardent love for Fanny.  I liked getting lost in the eloquence of Robert Stevenson’s old-style prose which added a richness and authenticity to the book.  Here’s a sample of the writing, where Robert Louis Stevenson describes himself.

“…a penniless Scottish wraith, who sometimes seems more composed of cough than flesh, and appears to subsist on a diet of sunlight and cigarette smoke, the latter wrapped in two fat slices of the former.”

Brian Doyle, The Adventures of John Carson in Several Quarters of the World (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2017), 44.

How elegant!  It makes me want to dive into one of Stevenson’s real novels again. 

My book club gave it mixed reviews.  For the most part, they liked the stories but thought the long descriptions in the book became tedious. The quote I picked above is probably an example of what some didn’t like.  On the other hand, everyone enjoyed reading the afterword explaining how the characters were based on real people.  In the end the good probably outweighed the bad. If you’re a Robert Louis Stevenson fan, like me, you probably can’t go wrong. 

Happy Reading,

Annette

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