The Blind Bow Boy by Carl Van Vechten

New York : Knopf, 1923

The Blind Bow Boy is a bit of a camp novel. Young Harold Prewett is summoned to see his estranged father. Having been raised by his Aunt Sadi since the time of his mother's death, his father was a virtual stranger. George Prewett's has hired someone to teach Harold about the world. Paul (sometimes Paulet) Moody is tasked with introducing Harold to the world. Soon Harold starts attending parties and jazz clubs in Harlem and becomes acquainted with a number of interesting characters such as the eccentric Duke of Middlebottom and Zimbule, a circus performer.

Campaspe's garden, which appears as the dustjacket and frontispiece image by Robert E. Locher, is in many ways the center of the story and is obviously the source of the novel's title.

     Campaspe's garden, at the rear of the house, was enclosed in high brick walls on which were trained espaliered fruit-trees. Dwarf shrubs forced their miniature trunks between the mossy crevices of the flagstones of various sizes and colours that paved the ground. Over these a quaint tortoise of considerable size and incredible age, named Algaë, wandered in a disconsolate manner. There were a few comfortable chairs and, in one corner, under the shade of a spreading crab-apple tree, a table. In the opposite corner rose a rococo fountain which Campaspe, entranced at first sight, had purchased in an antiquary's shop in Dresden. This fountain gave the atmosphere to the whole place. On a low pedestal, in the midst of a semi-circular pool, a marble Eros, blindfold, knelt. His bow drawn taut, the god was about to discharge an arrow at random. Beneath him, prone on the marble sward, a young nymph wept. The figures were surrounded by a curving row of stiff straight marble narcissi, the water dripping from their cups into the pool below, in which silver-fish played.

(1st Edition (1923), p.158-9)

A curiosity in the text is a lengthy negative commentary (p.159-165) by Campaspe regarding the writing of Waldo Frank, with specific reference to The Dark Mother, published 3 years prior to The Blind Bow Boy and discussed previously on this blog.  

Bibliographies & Ratings: Garde (OTP, d); Mattachine Review (I); Young (3900)