El Alisal: Where History Lingers

Charles Lummis has resurfaced in recent years as a subject of considerable historical interest. Larger than life at times, full of contradictions as times, certainly unorthodox with a flair for the dramatic, Lummis has long been shrouded in myth and half-truths. He can now step forward as Jane Apostol concisely and accurately introduces both the man and his beloved El Alisal. Once Lummis had safely arrived here, he was fond of saying the "God made California and He made it on purpose" I suspect, however, that those who came to know this energetic and theatrical author, editor, librarian, curator, scholar, preservationist, and booster might have found it difficult to apply the same reasoning to Lummis himself. But no matter. As Jane Apostol ably points out, Lummis accomplished a great deal in his nearly three score and ten years. His perceptive and skillful recording of the southwestern scene, for example, earned him praise from Lawrence Clark Powell as the "one against whom all subsequent Southwesterners must be measured." - Thomas F. Andrews (excerpts from book's Foreword)