THE  HOTALINGS

Worse I May Be Yet, a work of historical fiction, is a novel about a pioneer family during the "champagne days" of San Francisco between the late 1890s and 1925.  The Hotalings were friends to all, enjoying rare wealth and social prominence thanks to a fortune amassed by A. P. Hotaling, for many years the largest whiskey distiller and wholesaler on the West Coast.

A privileged life among some of the "best" and most interesting people of the day did not stop things from going wrong. The mounting stress of deaths in the family, the Great Fire, and the approach of first World War and the Prohibition amendment pressurized and turned them against each other. Soon they were on the front page of every paper.

Worse I May Be Yet is also an inspection of the life of a gay man trying to have a marvelous life—with lots of Shakespeare thrown in—while tending to his responsibilities to his family and the society around him.

AUTHOR'S NOTE

Abigail Hamilton

One day in perhaps 1987 I strode into the living room of my mother's house, the house in which I had grown up,  the house in which my  grandmother had also lived. I overheard the word "lawsuit" jump cleanly from someone's lips. I inquired. A small antique trunk was brought out an opened, and a clipping from the front page of a San Francisco newspaper was handed to me. It was yellow with age but bore a blaring headlines about some very bad behavior between my forebears. 

 I remembered this moment years later, at a time when the Internet had matured and all manner of research was newly possible. I began to search and the world of newspaper  and other archives was opened up to me and I found that "the lawsuit" was just the part of a fascinating  story in which my family, in the early years of the twentieth century,  became a house wretchedly divided for the whole world to see. I knew then I had to write this book.

I didn't know the book would take almost three years to write. I thought I was writing a story about six or so people who lived in San Francisco, but I discovered that it’s a larger story about a time and a changing but eternal city as well. At the heart of this novel is a family mystery which can never be solved. I have based the events as closely as possible on the historical record provided by family fumes and the newspapers of the day, which are startlingly generous in breadth and detail, adding only what seemed necessary to bring the characters and events to life, and to help myself understand what happened inside a prosperous and admired family with every advantage given to it.

I hope this book gives readers even a few of the outsized pleasures and insights given me by such inspirations as Thomas Mann's Buddenbrooks,   Donna Leone's  Death at La Fenice, Irene Nemerovsky's Suite Française, and   so many other careful inspections of times, places, and people.

EXCERPT   

 MONDAY, JUNE 14, 1897 — ​ 1776 CALIFORNIA STREET, SAN FRANCISCO

At length, Gigi and George emerged to put on a play. The play was pure Dick, as both playwright and director: It featured two-year-old George in the role of a family dog.
For the duration of the play, A.P. let his heart wander through a hazy and perfumed mist of gratitude that the boy named George embodied not just his own little self but his dead uncle. A.P. let himself think about the first little George, leaping over the pain of his death and the dark hole it left behind and alighting by his brightness and good humor. How George had always been able to get Fred into a good mood somehow using God knew what tricks. How Barnes had rejoiced to learn this second son of A.P.  was given his name. This little grandson had a lot built into him. A.P.’s senses were so taken over with love for the three Georges that the play could have been anything.
But, Dick had used his actor’s natural dispositions to ensure that it prickled with drama. Gigi, at five years old, was expert at disciplining the unpredictable creature played by George; when George had begun to kick his legs too many times against a low bamboo table, Gigi grabbed his feet and held them fast, filling the room with shrill reproval. At this, Ella sent the children home with their maid.

“Well, that was exhausting. You think it was the children who exerted themselves, but behind the scenes the effort was all mine. I have never seen a child assume such authority over a dog, nor a dog so oblivious,” Dick said to Ella, incredulity animating his broad face for effect.

“Dick, you’re a dear to have done that with the children, as I know you think anyone under 20 to be a dolt!”

“There’s no gap a little theatre can’t bridge,” said Dick.

“I think you masterminded the climax perfectly, Gigi insisting George make amends by licking up the spilled water and eating the flowers.”
​
“Al contrario, Sorella,” said Dick, “As I’m sure you guess, that was improviso. I can only take credit for some agitated whispers from offstage. The climax was to be at the end—my coming through as a beggar with a harmonica and decrying that I had no monkey, and Gigi offering up George to do the job and offering herself as a vocal accompanist. She was going to audition with the song ‘I Wish That I’d Been Born a Boy’ while we three exited the stage.”

This work of historical fiction does not yet have a publisher.  Inquiries welcomed.

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