24 KIM DISMONT ROBINSON

Maynard Crawford.6 This book, which is now out of print, was first
published in 1921; Ms Baker states in her foreword that The Painted
Lily is "a novel of Bermudan life, written in Bermuda. I have described
things as I have found them, during a two years' stay in the islands.
That there are other aspects I have no doubt." Baker goes on to state:
"The colonial families see life from one angle, the American tourists
from another. Impressions are the result of personal experience; mine,
though in no way autobiographical, are set down in the following pages."
 There is an interesting story behind The Painted Lily; although the
book is out of print, you will be hard-pressed to find a copy of this
book in Bermuda despite the local references. The rumour surrounding
its unavailability, which like any rumour on a small island may be either
total fact or total fiction, is that the white population in Bermuda
destroyed most of the copies of the book when it was first published.
Regardless of the veracity of such a rumour, one may wonder what
about the book's content would spark such a real or imagined reaction.
The basic plot of The Painted Lily, about a black woman who
unsuccessfully attempts to pass for white and eventually becomes a
famous film star, is startlingly similar to the 1934 classic film Imitation
of Life and its 1959 remake starring Lana Turner. However, the aspect
of the text which perhaps caused a stir is that one of Lily's relatives
who is also "passing" is married to a wealthy white Bermudian
businessman an aspect of the book that may have some basis in fact.7
 Although the reader is assured in the foreword that The Painted Lily
is not an autobiographical novel nor is it meant to be read as a factual
text, the author's admission that this novel is based on her observations
of Bermudian culture during her two-year stay on the island cannot be
ignored. It is for this reason that perhaps the observations regarding
Bermuda by one of the more periphery characters may be considered
as at least partially based on the author's impressions of the island.
This character states that "Bermuda in 1919 was a pure island, and a
dull island; and it has not changed... a grand passion couldn't live in
Bermuda, it would die of damp and apathy." One character, the wife of
an English colonel who yearns for her former station in Africa, brands
Bermuda as "an isle of negation... here, no one could do a great deed,


 6 Baker, Amy J. The Painted Lily. London: John Long, Ltd., 1921.
 7 For insight into the issue of Bermudian race issues and the dynamics of
"passing" as occurs fictionally in The Painted Lily and historically on the island of
Bermuda, see Kim Dismont Robinson's "Family Secrets," The Bermudian, February
2001: 10-14.