THE GOLDEN GEYSER

The boom in Florida real estate during the 1920's is the background for a novel about money and how the urge for it and the opportunity for it affects different people. The hero, Robert Nolan, wants only to be a successful nursery farmer, and to experiment with the flowers that he loves on his Florida farm. But as real estate skyrockets, he and his wife Shirley and his father-in-law Sam Anders are only a few of the thousands drawn into land speculation. Shirley loves the excitement of easy money, but this excitement pulls her further and further away from her husband. Bob Nolan neglects his nursery and reluctantly becomes a real estate salesman in an attempt to keep up with his wife's new life. Only Sam Anders is a true real estate man, who stakes his new fortune on his dream of becoming a developer, and of building a city like Miami or Coral Gables on a tract of land surrounding Nolan's old nursery. When the bust comes, Sam Anders is wiped out and has nothing more to live for, but Bob and Shirley are shocked into the possibility of resuming their real life. The novel is enhanced by the insertion of brief passages of historical summary and of biographies of men like Carl Fisher, George Merrick, and D.P. Davis, which provide a perspective on the events of the story and show the achievements of the dedicated developers of the period. A well-paced novel commercializes on the shine of the shekel and gives this a certain popular allure.