ABSTRACT
Mabel next wrote Brill from the Hoveys' home in Beverly Hills, complaining of a depression fueled by the strain of continuing conflict with her son. Out of concern for her friend's emotional state, Sonya had urged Mabel to visit them in California to relieve her immobilizing melancholy. Despite her despair, Mabel did finish Una and Robin in Taos, the second installment in her three-part series about the Jeffers family, while visiting the Hoveys; it is signed and dated "December 1938, Beverly Hills." In the following letter, Brill acknowledges receipt of her novel, Water of Life, and advises Mabel not to dwell on her depressed feelings. Sergeant's article in The Saturday Review (November 26, 1938) was a sympathetic portrait of Mabel, provocatively entitled "Sphinx of Taos Desert." Brill next writes Mabel about Una and Robin in Taos, where she describes dramatic crises in the Jeffers's marriage, including Una's suicide attempt while gripped by extremes of rage and jealousy.
