The Net, A Novel
By Rex Beach
The train from Palermo was late. Already long, shadowy fingers were reaching down the valleys across which the railroad track meandered. Far to the left, out of an iridescent sea, rose the fairy-like Lipari Islands, and in the farthest distance, Stromboli lifted its smoking cone above the horizon. On the landward side of the train, as it reeled and squealed along its tortuous course, were gray and gold Sicilian villages perched high against the hills or drowsing among fields of artichoke, sumac, and prickly pear.
To one familiar with modern Sicilian railway trains, the journey eastward from Palermo promises no considerable discomfort. Still, twenty-five years ago, it was not to be lightly undertaken—not undertaken at all, in fact, without unusual equipment of patience and a resignation entirely lacking in the average Anglo-Saxon. It was not surprising, therefore, that Norvin Blake, as the hours dragged along, should remark less and less upon the beauties of the island and more and more upon the medieval condition of the rickety railroad coach in which he was shaken and buffeted about. He shifted himself to an easier position upon the seat and lighted a cheroot, for although this was his first glimpse of Sicily, he had watched the same villages come and go all through a long, hot afternoon, had seen the same groves of orange and lemon and dust-green olive-trees, the same fields of Barbary figs, the same rose-grown garden spots until he was heartily tired of them all. He felt at liberty to smoke, for the only occupant of the compartment was a young priest in a flowing mantle and silk beaver hat.
Finding that Blake spoke Italian remarkably well for a foreigner, the priest had shown an earnest desire for closer acquaintance and now plied him eagerly with questions, hanging upon his answers with a childlike intensity of gaze, which at first had been amusing.
“And so the Signore has traveled from Paris to attend the wedding at Terranova. Veramente! That is a great journey. Many wonderful adventures befell you, perhaps. Eh?” The priest’s little eyes gleamed from his full cheeks, and he edged forward until his knees crowded Blake’s. Evidently, he anticipated a thrilling tale and did not intend to be disappointed.
“It was very tiresome, that’s all, and the beggars at Naples nearly tore me asunder.”
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Rex Beach
Rex Ellingwood Beach (September 1, 1877 – December 7, 1949) was an American novelist, playwright, and Olympic water polo player.
Early life
Rex Beach was born in Atwood, Michigan, but moved to Tampa, Florida, with his family, where his father grew fruit trees. Beach studied at Rollins College, Florida (1891–1896), the Chicago College of Law (1896–97), and Kent College of Law, Chicago (1899–1900). In 1900, he was drawn to Alaska during the Klondike Gold Rush.
Writing career
After five years of unsuccessful prospecting, he turned to writing. His second novel, The Spoilers (1906), was based on a true story about corrupt government officials stealing gold mines from prospectors, which he witnessed while prospecting in Nome, Alaska. The Spoilers became one of the best-selling novels of 1906.
His adventure novels, influenced by Jack London, were prevalent throughout the early 1900s. Beach was lionized as the “Victor Hugo of the North,” but others found his novels formulaic and predictable. Critics described them as cut from the “he-man school” of literature. Historian Stephen Haycox has said that many of Beach’s works are “mercifully forgotten today.”
One novel, The Silver Horde (1909), is set in Kalvik, a fictionalized community in Bristol Bay, Alaska, and tells the story of a down-on-his-luck gold miner who discovers more incredible wealth in Alaska’s run of salmon (silver horde) and decides to open a cannery. To accomplish this, he must overcome the relentless opposition of the “salmon trust,” a fictionalized Alaska Packers’ Association, which undercuts his financing, sabotages his equipment, incites a longshoremen’s riot, and bribes his fishermen to quit. The storyline includes a love interest as the protagonist chooses between his fiancée, a spoiled banker’s daughter, and an earnest roadhouse operator, a woman of “questionable virtue.” Real-life cannery superintendent Crescent Porter Hale has been credited with inspiring The Silver Horde, but it is unlikely Beach and Hale ever met.
After success in literature, many of his works were adapted into successful films; The Spoilers became a stage play, then was remade into movies five times from 1914 to 1955, with Gary Cooper and John Wayne each playing “Roy Glennister” in 1930 and 1942, respectively.
The Silver Horde was twice made into a movie, as a silent film in 1920 starring Myrtle Stedman, Curtis Cooksey, and Betty Blythe and directed by Frank Lloyd, and a talkie version, The Silver Horde (1930) that starred Jean Arthur and Joel McCrea, and Evelyn Brent and was produced by George Archainbaud.
Beach occasionally produced his films and also wrote several plays to varying success. In 1926, Beach was paid $25,000 (~$332,582 in 2022) to write a brochure entitled The Miracle of Coral Gables to promote the real estate development of Coral Gables, Florida, a planned city.
Death and legacy
Rex Beach moved to Sebring in the 1920s, where he lived at the Harder Hall Hotel before buying a home in 1929. In 1949, two years after the death of his wife Edith, Beach committed suicide in Sebring, Florida, at the age of 72. In 2005, when the home Beach lived in was remodeled, a bullet was found in the wall, believed to be the bullet that ended his life.
Beach served as the first president of the Rollins College Alumni Association. He and his wife are buried in front of the Alumni House.
Beach and his most famous novel were commemorated in 2009 by naming a public pedestrian/bicycle trail in Dobbs Ferry, NY, a former place of residence. The trail is called “Spoilers Run”.
Rex Beach
