Under the Fig Tree by Salome Otterbourne

Thanks to Smithsonian Journeys 

Title: Under the Fig Tree

Author: Salome Otterbourne

Publisher: not known 

Source book: Death on the Nile by Agatha Christie 

The first time Hercule Poirot encounters the author Salome Otterbourne is at the Cataract Hotel at Aswan in Egypt. Mrs Otterbourne tells him she is collecting local colour for her new book, Snow on the desert’s Face (Snow on the Sphinx’s Face in the Peter Ustinov film*). She tells him it will be “powerful - suggestive. Snow on the desert - melted in the first flaming breath of passion. One must be strong. Strong meat - that is what my books are - all important…… sex - ah! Why is everyone so afraid of sex?”

Poirot has to confess that he hasn’t read any of Mrs Otterbourne’s books so she forces a copy of Under the Fig Tree on him. She tells him he will find it significant and outspoken.

The book jacket depicts a lady with smartly shingled hair and scarlet fingernails, sitting on a tiger skin, in the traditional costume of Eve (presumably she has no clothes on). Above the woman is a tree with the leaves of an oak, bearing large and improbably coloured apples. The publisher’s blurb speaks enthusiastically of the superb courage and realism of this study of a modern woman’s love life. 

Did people really read books like this? Do they now?

Also by Salome Otterbourne; The Barren Vine.

Angela Lansbury, chiefly remembered these days for her long running TV series Murder She Wrote, has a lot of fun in the Peter Ustinov movie version of Death on the Nile, as the no longer successful and probably alcoholic author, Salome Otterbourne.

Interestingly, Agatha Christie wrote an unpublished romance called Snow Upon the Desert before she became a bestselling author of detective novels.

I once visited the pyramids and the sphinx at Giza. It rained, which was disappointing. But at least it didn’t snow.

* Also featured in the film but not, I think, in the book is Passion Under the Persimmon Tree. Linette Ridgeway thinks it is based on her and is suing Mrs Otterbourne for libel. 

Thanks to Encyclopaedia Britannica