The Enchanted Quest of Dana and Ginger Lamb

Chapter 4 QUEST FOR THE LOST CITY

CHAPTER 4 QUEST FOR THE IOST CITY The most damning charge possible against purveyors of real-life adventure is that they might be faking it—writing fiction, in other words. Throughout the 1930s, Dana and Ginger Lamb had been praised in press reports and in book reviews for their authenticity, and were well-received on the film-lecturecircuit. But when the coming of World War II prompted them to seek a new audience, things had not gone as well. President Roosevelt enjoyed seeing their films and listening to their stories about Mexico, and was sufficiently intrigued by their knowledge of alleged subversiveactivities south of the border to bring them into government service. He, however, was the first and the last person in Washington, D.C., to appreciate their efforts. Within six months of being hired by "the Boss," they were under fire from Nelson Rockefeller, an influential member of the Roosevelt Administration as Coordinator of Inter-American Affairs, for misrepresenting a site shown in their film The Road to Mayapan as a "Lost City." A year later, during the summer of 1943, the FBI itself had decided much of the information from their two Special Employees was fabricated. And so they were dismissed, but not before stringing the Bureau along for another five months, during which they wrote more presumed fiction and involved the White House once more in their highly dramatized activities. 135 QUEST FOR THE LOST CITY Selling an allegedly faked film to Rockefeller and living on a great deal of FBI money had kept the Lambs financially comfortable , and when they turned back to conventional writing it was with the benefit of having had a year and a half of Mexican adventures paid for by a far from grateful government. The book they eventually produced, Quest for the Lost City, once again pleased readers, who made it a strong bestseller. Reviewers were equally appreciative, finding it a more personally appealing work than its predecessor. From a literary perspective, Quest is indeed superior to Enchanted Vagabonds, which was a picaresque (and at times digressive) account of surface excitement with little space for its authors' reactions, let alone contemplation. Reactions and contemplation play an important role in the newer book, which is presented with an artfulness that shows how carefully Dana and Ginger considered their materials. It was a personal work, quite revealing of its authors' inner selves and crafted with a sensitivity more commonly expressed in novels. Nonfiction can be literary. By 1951, when readers were already familiar with Pearl Buck's work on China, John Hersey's moving account of Hiroshima, and Anne Morrow Lindbergh's stirring yet intimate narratives of world travel, Quest for the Lost City could take its place on a bookshelf distinguished by depth and not simply excitement. Literary nonfiction uses the conventions of the novel— characterizations, imagery, and the artistic shaping of theme—to enhance the presentation of actual persons, places, and events. The risk involves seeing how much this fictive enhancement can enrich the subject without falsifying it. In judgingDana and Ginger Lamb's new book by this standard, knowledge of their FBIwork puts them under immediate suspicion, as the best and the brightest minds in FDR's Washington had made an investment in their honesty and found themselves gypped. Historically, there are even larger issues to consider. Unlike Enchanted Vagabonds, Quest for the Lost City's story was not built on the record of a single, sustained trip. Were the Lambs to be 136 QUEST FOR THE LOST CITY strictly accurate, they should have used the word "quests" to describe their work, as its timeline spanned elevenyears and involved no less than eight interruptions of travel, only a few of which are mentioned in the text. But no one enjoys reading an adventure story that keeps stopping and restarting, where on one page the hero and heroine are slashing their way through deep jungle and on the next posing for photographers back home in California, announcing plans to depart yet again. To make a good book, the record of their adventures had to be reshaped. And as with their customer at the Office of Inter-American Affairs and their employers at the FBI, Dana and Ginger were inviting the risk of being taken as fiction writers rather than as people who had really done it all. In rising to this challenge, the Lambs tell their story well. This...