Heat is the very obscure first novel of the very obscure American author Isa Glenn. Published in New York in 1926, it's set entirely in and around Manila, capital of the Philippines, at the time under United States colonial rule (and recently seized, or technically "bought", from the previous Spanish colonial empire via the 1898 Treaty of Paris and the then-ongoing Spanish-American War and sequel conflict the Philippine-American War—never mind the newly independent Philippine republic fiercely trying to defend its sovereignty in between the two).
It is a very rare and forgotten example of an American-penned fictional novel that deals with America's colonial empire—and by a woman at that—but one steeped in direct experience: Glenn, of American Southern origin and the daughter of an Atlanta, Georgia mayor, was married for 18 years, from 1903 until the latter's death in 1921, to Brigadier General Samuel Bayard Schindel, a U.S. Army officer whose foreign tours of service took him (and thus her) through much of Asia and the Pacific, including, yes, the colonial Philippines. At his side for practically all of his postings, Glenn penned down all her observations of the culture and social norms within the U.S. Army and American colonial communities in general, and Heat is her first work to set down these succinct observations. Nor would it be her last: she later came out with novels like Little Pitchers and Mr Darlington's Dangerous Age which also depict American colonial society in full or in part, but these, and in fact all of her work in general, are woefully forgotten with her today.
The plot mainly revolves around three different facets of the American colonising force in the Philippines: Second Lieutenant Tom Vernay, schoolteacher Charlotte Carson, and cement businessman Richard Saulsbury, as they steam into Manila on a military transport and adjust to life in this new land where they've been saddled with different responsibilities toward the natives: to police them, educate them, or modernise their infrastructure, as part of the U.S. empire's larger "Benevolent Assimilation
" policy.
A complete digital online copy is available to read here.
Compare Burmese Days, a similar first novel about white colonialists in a Southeast Asian country, in this case Myanmar, but written by the far better-known George Orwell.
Tropes included:
- 20 Minutes into the Past: It's not explicitly said what year Heat takes place in, but subtle hints if matched to Real Life Philippine history at the time (e.g. the rarity of motorcars, the recency of the Philippine Revolution, Philippine-American War and U.S.-Moro wars in Mindanao, the absence of any mention of World War I—which Vernay and co. would almost certainly be called upon to fight in, etc.) suggest that it takes place some years before the novel's publication, probably in the 1900s-decade, also the first decade of U.S. colonial rule.
- A-Cup Angst: Charlotte feels this at being pretty flat compared to a fuller-chested someone like Dolores.
- America Takes Over the World: Landing the Philippines basically turned the United States into the newest "empire on which the sun never sets", as it's almost halfway around the world from the U.S. mainland, even farther than (in this period) fellow colony Hawai'i.
- Asian Speekee Engrish: Chinos, Chinese living in Manila, are naturally depicted as swapping L's for R's (e.g. "velly" for "very", etc.).
- Brain Freeze: Spanish boy Paraiso Ayala gets one as he downs a huge bowl of ice cream at Clarke's (a Real Life ice-cream parlour in American-era Manila), even as he's warned against it. Although the pains he calls out are in his nose, throat, chest and stomach.
- Citadel City: Intramuros, the heavily fortified Spanish-colonial boundaries of Manila. Vernay is sometimes told that only Spaniards and Filipinos call it that whereas Americans generally just call it the "Walled City"—and he feels kind of down that American military engineers are blowing holes in the walls to let fresh air into the stale streets inside, all for the sake of modern (read: American) public-health standards.
- Chubby Mama, Skinny Papa: The Ayala parents, stout and pompous Doña Adelina and thin and cruel Don Sebastian.
- During the War: The Philippine-American War, which the U.S. ended up winning, is naturally featured a lot, although of course it's not called that. One of Vernay's senpais, Simms, his West Point senior, is killed fighting anticolonial rebel remnants in Samar province in the Visayas, in the central Philippines.
- Then, of course, prior to that was the Philippine Revolution of 1896, the successful war of independence against Spain. The haughty Spanish Ayala family lose their eldest (a captain in the colonial army) to it.
- Eagle Land: Rather a mixed bag. Of course, the Americans themselves believe they're bringing the Type 1 version of this to their Philippine colony, but their actual attitudes and actions belie Type 2 characteristics a lot. Vernay is actually kind of sad how U.S. engineers are radically altering the ancient Intramuros without regard for its history, blowing holes in it and filling its moat, even if it's to bring it up to modern (read: American) standards of public health, hygiene and sanitation.
- Ethnic Menial Labor: Naturally. Chinese houseboys and servants work in the U.S. Army and Navy Club, and Filipino servants and cooks are everywhere, like the waiters and kitchen staff at Clarke's ice-cream parlour, the cook-boy at the Ermita hostel where Charlotte first stays, or the muchachos in the Intramuros hostel where she moves in with Ellen Halsey.
- Evil Colonialist: Normally mild-mannered Vernay throttles and threatens to beat up or even kill a Filipino waiter at an ice-cream parlour when the latter refuses to clean up an ice-cream spill on Charlotte's dress. (It's not clear if cleaning up personal spills was meant to be part of the waiter's job, but he seems to prioritise cleaning up minor stains on military customers like Vernay over giant stains on civilian teachers like Charlotte. Still, it seems rather an overreaction on Vernay's part, in part driven by his infatuation with Charlotte.) Meanwhile, his superior Capt. Jennings agrees with Vernay, applying to Filipinos the old sentiment toward Native Americans that "the only good native is a dead one". There are also teachers who run after and beat up their own native pupils (though in one case this is partly due to the kid in question peeping on his teacher while bathing).
- The residual Spaniards can hold their own in this department. Even a veritable Spanish kid like Paraiso Ayala holds all manner of negative stereotypes about the Filipino natives and also agrees with Vernay's abuse of the native waiter.
- Going Native:
- Gratuitous Spanish: Naturally given the large numbers of residual Spaniards as well as Filipino natives and Chinese who picked up some of the language. American colonials certainly needed to know a little bit of it to get around and to make themselves understood by more than a few locals. Vernay uses this to get familiar with Spanish boy Paraiso for one.
- Have a Gay Old Time: "Gay" as in "happy", of course, since this was written in The Roaring '20s and set perhaps a decade or two earlier.
- Heat Wave: The novel's very title gives away that this is easily the most inescapable feature of the U.S.-colonial tropics: the sun, heat and humidity, so extreme for American mainlanders that the very air ripples with it.
- Historical Domain Character: General Emilio Aguinaldo, Rebel Leader and sometime president of the First Philippine Republic, is mentioned from time to time in the context of fighting the Spaniards and then the Americans (before ultimately surrendering to them). Some of the named characters are obliquely linked to him: the Ayalas lost a son to his forces, and native (but mestiza?) woman Josefa and her native boyfriend, Estéban Perez, were apparently Katipunan / Revolutionary Army supporters.
- Impoverished Patrician: Lt Vernay learns from the (indio/native Filipino) Dos Hermanos tailors that the Ayalas are attempting to sell off their jewellery and their vast but unprofitable haciendas so they can go home to Spain, like most of their compatriots who fled the ex-Spanish colony upon losing it to first the Philippine revolutionaries and then to the Americans.
- The Ingenue: Dolores Ayala, full-Spanish delicate damsel and the object of Vernay's infatuation.
- Latin Land: This is the particular impression of Manila, which was the Spanish-colonial capital before it passed into American rule. Intramuros, built by the Spanish in the late 1500s with native labour, is literally where most of the Spanish community live (although they're not restricted there by any means), with all its fancy bahay na bato (stone houses, though usually only lower levels were mostly stone) with intricate window rejas or grilles. Catholicism is prevalent what with the many Intramuros cathedrals and the presence of frailes (friars), not all of whom were expelled when Spanish rule ended.
- Love Triangle: Charlotte loves Vernay, who loves Dolores Ayala.
- Loving a Shadow: What Vernay's attraction to Dolores turns out to be.
- Melting-Pot Nomenclature: Lots of Anglo-American and Spanish names, of course. Not to mention "Vernay" likely has French origins.
- Mighty Whitey and Mellow Yellow: Josefa, the native (or mestiza?) girl who works as househelp to the Ayalas, quickly sets herself up as Saulsbury's native mistress and squeezes quite a bit of money out of him that way, despite also having a native boyfriend in the persona of Estéban, on whom she spends what she gets from Saulsbury and co. It was perhaps only inevitable that there would be interracial (and coloniser-colonised) relationships in this kind of setting.
- Only in It for the Money: Saulsbury often talks big about profiteering off the new Philippine colony by selling cement for modern concrete houses to replace their wooden fire hazards. One gets the sense that any genuine desire to help the natives out is still secondary to his profit motive.
- Outliving One's Offspring: The Ayalas have two living children, Paraiso and Dolores. A third one was a captain of some sort killed by Filipino Revolutionaries led by Gen. Emilio Aguinaldo in 1896.
- The Peeping Tom: One of Charlotte's co-faculty, Ellen Halsey, recounts in horror and shock how one of her own native-Filipino students (ironically named "Angel", though of course it would've been pronounced Spanish-style, i.e., "ang-hell") peeped in on her in the shower. She springs out, gives chase along the full length of Calle Real, and even manages to whale on him a couple times—more if she hadn't kept clutching at her kimono or bathrobe all the while.
- Shout-Out: The novel even gives one to another obscure US work about their new Philippine colony: The Sultan of Sulu, the musical by George Ade. A few American women admit to watching it in San Francisco, comparing their first view of Manila to the musical's stage sets (although Sulu is in the far south and quite different from Manila).
- Shown Their Work: Glenn is remarkably accurate or at least very detailed about much of Manila's geography, biodiversity, culture and society, and is reasonably well-informed of goings-on even in other parts of the Philippines (e.g. fighting rebels in Samar), in a time when she would have had to read up on it intensively if not actually travel there (which, of course, is what happened, being the wife of a colonial officer).
- Sick Episode: Late in Chapter III Vernay comes down with dengue fever (exacerbated by sunstroke) and is confined to a Manila military hospital for it. He enjoys the unrestricted supply of ice, but chafes at his confinement because he was looking forward to fighting Filipino rebels in the islands, and his illness comes just when his senior Simms is called down to Samar provincenote to fight the Pulajanes (anticolonial messianic rebel groups) … but by the end of the chapter Vernay realises he dodged that bullet. Literally, because Simms is killed in the fighting.
- Tropical Island Adventure: Set in the Philippines, so.
- Vestigial Empire: By this point they really don't have control over the Philippines anymore, but lots of Spaniards from the old days have stayed behind, Dons and Catholic friars alike.
- White Man's Burden: Make no mistake, the Americans are still colonisers, but their assignments in their new Philippine colony are couched in these terms (especially apt given the Trope Namer was explicitly dedicated by Rudyard Kipling to the Americans during the Philippine-American War). Charlotte is on contract as a schoolteacher to teach English and other subjects to the Filipino natives, and Saulsbury is supposed to be building modern, fireproof, concrete houses for them.
