Jack London’s Debut Novel: The Cruise of the Dazzler (1902)
Depending on what your definition of a novel is, The Cruise of the Dazzler is Jack London’s debut, though at around 100 pages, it’s more novella than novel. In any case, it is not clear under what circumstances Jack London wrote and published this book in 1902 — the earliest edition we have found includes a forward by the Boy Scouts of America’s Chief Executive Scout, a position created in 1911 — but despite this being over 125 years old, it reads quickly and holds up surprisingly well as a boy’s adventure novel.
There is bullying, the encouragement of bullying, and shots fired at children, but there is also a surprising wholesomeness to The Cruise of the Dazzler.
Jack London’s Daddy Issues
One particularly striking element of this book is young Joe Bronson’s relationship with his father, who demonstrates infinite patience and infinite understanding with Joe’s academic troubles and his impulsive gallivanting to the dangerous part of town. This seems to be such a stark difference with London’s own relationship with his natural father, who is believed to be an astrologist named William Chaney that advised his mother Flora Wellman to abort the pregnancy.
When she refused, Chaney absolved himself of his paternal responsibilities and did so again later on in life, when Jack reached out as a 21 year-old student at the University of California, Berkeley. This devastated London, and it’s fair to wonder if he sought surrogates in his writing.
In the beginning of the story and in the end, Joe’s father is so generous and forgiving and accommodating that this fictional relationship almost seems like a wish-casting fantasy that London himself is projecting, knowing what we know about him and William Chaney. It is hard to not feel a great swell of affection when Mr. Bronson asserts to his son that “no Joe is like my Joe,” and it is hard not to imagine London living vicariously through this invention of a loving father.
Jack London Low-Key Addresses Toxic Masculinity
Maybe Jack London was not as clever as Mark Twain in his observations on American boyhood in the antebellum, but he was absolutely in touch with its vulnerabilities. We like to say boys will be boys to brush away problematic behavior but with his debut novel, Jack London wanted us to know that boys can be capable of so much more — even and perhaps especially — when left to their own devices.
Take Joe’s friendship with the so-called ‘Frisco Kid, the orphan sailor that Joe meets who works on the Dazzler. Chapters 16 and 17, where the ‘Frisco Kid bares his soul as articulately as his limited education will allow, is nothing short of downright heartbreaking.
With so little familiarity of what life is like on land, the ‘Frisco Kid quizzes Joe on what girls are actually like, and shares the tragic parentless story of his experiences in the boys’ home and the ship captains that have employed him. There is a part where Joe puts his arm around his new friend to comfort him, and even without the ability to describe it in academic language, Joe is able to recognize the moment for what it is: a shedding of his own internalized toxic masculinity to acknowledge another young man’s sensitivity.
Final Thoughts on The Cruise of the Dazzler
Jack London was still a few years away from becoming a household name with classics like Call of the Wild and White Fang, but his mastery of storytelling is certainly on display here, even in a book that was once marketed to young men through the Every Boy’s Library series organized by the Boy Scouts of America.
There are insights in The Cruise of the Dazzler that transcend the typical boy’s adventure story of the time, and well worth a reader’s time, no matter their age or gender.
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Cover image credit by Tony Webster, from San Francisco Bay Trail and Alameda Marina, via Wikimedia Commons.
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