The Life She Wished to Live: A Biography of Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings, Author of The Yearling by Ann McCutchan

I went into this biography only somewhat familiar with Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings--mostly from the movie version of The Yearling and the movie Cross Creek based on her life. As I read, my interest was held and then I was riveted. By the end, I was moved and a fan.

Rawlings was one of the 1930s writers whose career was benefited by Max Perkins of Scribner, the legendary editor who worked with F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ernest Hemingway, and Thomas Wolfe. I had read the biography Max Perkins by A. Scott Berg--forty-plus years ago!--but did not recall Rawlings. 

I spent my teen years reading 20th c writers, including those Perkins mentored, but I don't remember finding women writers listed on the 'greats.' Where was Rawlings? Likely, relegated to the children's section, represented by The Yearling.

Rawlings's mother had hoped for more from life. She determined her daughter would achieve what she had not. When no musical ability was displayed, but Marjorie won a prize for a story, her mother supported—and pushed her—into writing.

Cross Creek, Edward Shenton illustration

After college, Rawlings became a hack writer and journalist until she felt ready to assume her life's real work as a writer. 

She and her husband, also a writer, purchased a Florida orange grove in a backwater community, setting up in a ramshackle house without electricity or plumbing. 

Running a business took much of their energy and time and money, but the Cracker and African American neighbors also gave her material for her work. 

Rawlings’s research brought her to live with neighbors to experience their lives, and she went on crocodile and snake hunts. 

Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings book Cross Creek (1933 ed.)
and The Yearling (Grosset & Dunlap movie tie-in edition)
from my personal library

Rawling's life held many disappointments and challenges. Her first marriage failed, her husband jealous of her success. She struggled with alcohol use and continual health concerns. Her personal relationships were tested, including an extended lawsuit. She suffered from doubt. She also achieved the Pulitzer Prize and a second marriage with a supporting and loving husband.

I had moments of discomfort with Rawling's language of white supremacy, referencing her African American friends and servants by what we today would consider derogatory terms, but which represented typical white mores at that time. 

McCutchan takes readers on a journey into Rawling's transformation from accepting her inherited values to becoming friends with Zora Neale Hurston and raising her voice for equal rights.

Edward Shenton illustration for The Yearling

Rawlings also became involved with environmental groups. 

A study in contrasts, Rawlings could tap into her society background and was friends with writers and publisher's daughters, but she could be bawdy and rowdy, toting a gun on a hunt. She even went into the scrub wearing a silk nightgown to rescue an animal. I loved her esteem for Thomas Wolfe and her heartbreak over his early loss before he could reach his artistic maturity.

This is terrific biography.  

I received a free egalley from the publisher through NetGalley. My review is fair and unbiased.

The Life She Wished to Live: A Biography of Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings, author of The Yearling
by Ann McCutchan
W. W. Norton & Company
Pub Date April 26, 2021   
Hardcover $35.00
ISBN: 9780393353495

from the publisher

A comprehensive and engaging biography of Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings, Pulitzer Prize–winning author of the classic The Yearling.

Washington, DC, born and Wisconsin educated, Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings was an unlikely author of a coming-of-age novel about a poor central Florida child and his pet fawn—much less one that has become synonymous with Floridian literature writ large.

Rawlings was a tough, passionate, and independent woman who refused the early-twentieth-century conventions of her upbringing. Determined to exist outside her comfort zone, she found her voice in the remote hardscrabble life of Cross Creek, Florida. Between hunting alligator and managing an orange grove, Rawlings employed her sensitive eye, sharp ear for dialogue, and philosophical spirit to bring to life an unknown corner of America in vivid, tender detail—a feat that earned her the Pulitzer Prize in 1938. 

The Life She Wished to Live paints a lively portrait of Rawlings, her contemporaries—including her legendary editor Maxwell Perkins and friends Zora Neale Hurston and Ernest Hemingway—and the Florida landscape and people that inspired her.

About the Author: 

Ann McCutchan is the author of five books of memoir, essay, and biography. The founding director of the University of Wyoming's MFA in creative writing program and former editor of American Literary Review, McCutchan grew up in Florida and now lives in Wyoming.

The Engineer's Wife by Tracey Enerson Wood: Based on the True Story of the Woman Who Built the Brooklyn Bridge

 

When engineer Washington Roebling's father died, it fell to him to build the Brooklyn Bridge, an unprecedented engineering feat. Luckily, Wash had married a woman of intelligence and strength, because when he fell victim to caissons disease (decompression sickness), Emily became his link to the outside world. Eventually, her understanding of engineering brought her to be the de facto engineer in charge of the bridge.

Tracey Enerson Wood's historical fiction novel The Engineer's Wife imagines Emily's story from girlhood, as a young wife, and finally as an engineer. 

Wood does a splendid job of incorporating how the bridge was literally built and the risks it incorporated. That alone is an amazing story that sweeps across the heights and depths of human emotion and scientific progress. 

Wood makes the story universally appealing by turning it into a romance as well, with Emily's love for Wash turns to despair when his illness leaves her without his support, emotionally and intimately. She struggles to find confidence, leaning on P. T. Barnum, their fictional relationship not based on history, but delineating how the real Emily may have struggled without an involved husband. 

I would have been kept interested strictly by Emily's personal growth and ability to meet challenges usually given to men. But the romance angle will appeal to many historical fiction readers.

It is an absorbing and interesting novel. 

I received a free book from the publisher. My review is fair and unbiased.

The Engineer's Wife
by Tracey Enerson Wood
Sourcebooks Landmark 

Publication Date April 7, 2020
ISBN-10 : 149269813X
ISBN-13 : 978-1492698135

Covid-19 Life: A Quilt Finish, New Books, a Walk in the Woods, and The End of the Rainbow

I finished machine quilting the Water Lily quilt! I intend to wash it and the fabric and cotton batting will shrink some, giving it an antique look. I bought this Mountain Mist pattern early in my quilting life, almost thirty years ago. It was time I finally made it.

I hand appliqued it and machine quilted it. I should not have machine quilted it. It was a very bad idea. But, when I read that the quilting was to be echo quilting I did not want to do all that hand quilting. It is what it is.

Book mail from The Book Club Cookbook and St. Martin's Press included the paperback edition A Good Neighborhood by Therese Anne Fowler. 

I reviewed the galley when it came out. I wrote,

Foreshadowing began with the opening sentences, narrated in a voice that brought to mind Rod Serling introducing a Twilight Zone episode, setting up the story.

A girl sitting beside a swimming pool behind her newly built home. The neighbor boy welcoming her to the neighborhood. A typical day in a typical good neighborhood, upscale and friendly, a place where women gather for book clubs and teenagers can safely run in the local park.

But underneath the 'tenuous peace' simmers the possibility of fracture, the conflict of class and money and race and values. For some, conspicuous wealth is the goal. For another, environmental concerns are primary.

And probing deeper, there are secret desires and blooming love and the blindness we hold on to for self-protection.

Lives will be destroyed. A Good Neighborhood is a reflection of the social turmoil of our time.

New on my NetGalley shelf is

• Classical Crossroads by Leonard Slatkin, director laureate of the Detroit Symphony Orchestra, on ideas for the classical music world to meet the challenges of the 21 st c. Slatkin blogged about these ideas over the pandemic as orchestra concerts were shut down. We had season tickets for concerts that never happened last year. But we did enjoy accessing online concerts!
• Zero Waste Gardening:Maximize Space and Taste with Minimal Waste by Ben Raskin. We took a class in organic gardening in 1973. I am interested to learn about new techniques that address zero food waste.

From Goodreads giveaways is coming 

• The Ground Breaking: An American City and its Search for Justice, about the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre by Scott Ellsworth. I have read books that reference massacre, now I will learn more about this tragedy. 

And from The Book Club Cook Book I won

• A Hundred Suns by Karin Tanabe, historical fiction set in 1930s Colonial Vietnam

A snow was followed by temps into the high 20s, but our flowering fruit trees seem to have survived! I am thrilled since this is the year for a high apple yield from the Northern Spy trees. It is filled with buds ready to bloom.

I brought in the tulips. They were closed but opened with the warmth indoors.

April 22 was Earth Day. I was still in high school that first Earth Day. Students from a university had tables set up in the hall to educate us. I bought a pinback button still in my collect. Give Earth a Chance. Fifty-one years later,we still are hoping for changes that will protect our one and only home.

On Friday we went to Tenhave Woods in Royal Oak, Michigan to see the early spring wildflowers. The woods is next to the high school I attended and my biology teacher was instrumental in preserving them. 

Trillium are beginning to bloom, trout lily predominated in a yellow cloud, and we saw spring beauty and wild geranium. The may apples were budding. And we spooked a garter snake sunning himself.

We have visited the dentist and eye doctors, appointments we skipped last spring.  Last week we made some shopping trips into several local specialty stores, but are still using Shipt and pick up and social isolating. After all, these amazing vaccines are not 100% effective and we don't want to be the 5% who contract covid or pass it on.

I purchased masks with filters from Vera Bradley last summer and have been very pleased with them, plus they are pretty! I love the adjustable ear straps. They are now only $5.

Here are my obligatory fur grandkid pics. First up, Gus the kitten.

Sunny and Ellie go to Dogtopia where this  cute photo was taken. Apparently, the idea of a picnic did not appeal to the pups.

My brother and his girlfriend have been walking the North Country Trail across Michigan. Last weekend as they drove home, Martha caught this rainbow coming out of my brother's truck! 

Tom noted he was at the end of the rainbow, so perhaps was Martha's "pot of gold," but I suggested he also might be her leprechaun. 

Stay safe. And here's to finding the rainbow's end!

Who is Maud Dixon? by Alexandra Andrews

 

I was lucky to be able to still grab a galley of the much talked about thriller/mystery Who is Maud Dixon? I needed a plot-driven, page turner to get my reading mojo back. And this clever, twisted debut novel did the trick. I stayed up reading past my bedtime!

Florence had been raised to believe she was special and would accomplish big things. She did leave Florida and her single mom for New York City and the world of publishing. But, instead of being a big name writer, she works for an editor who has just sold her first book. Florence is frustrated and imagines another life, the life she *should* have, the success she deserved.

After sleeping with her boss's boss, she becomes obsessed with the man's family, stalking his wife and studying her, imitating her. It lands her in hot water, and without a job.

Then an opportunity arises for her to be the assistant to the best-selling author whose book was a major influence in her life. Maud Dixon was a pen name, and only one person knew who the real person behind the novel was...until Florence is hired to become her personal assistant.

Maud is really Helen Wilcox, only six years older than Florence. Helen is not a nice person. She is blunt, self-centered, cold-hearted, and sarcastic. Florence manages Helen's finances, correspondence, and types her work in progress which arrives in indecipherable handwriting so Florence has to insert her own words. It is also damn poor writing; Florence could do as well.

Helen makes the sudden decision for them to go to Morocco for research. When Florence wakes up in the hospital, a policeman calling her Ms Wilcox, she learns there was a car accident she can't recall--and Helen has disappeared. Florence does not correct the assumption of her identity, and hatches a plan to take over Helen's life for herself. 

Florence becomes embroiled in far more than she expected, and with several more plot twists, instead of gliding on Maud's fame and riches, she must escape prison and death.

The success of the novel rests on plot. Helen and Florence feel like 'types' and even the idea of assuming another's identity is not original. It took me more than half the novel to be hooked into that late night reading to finish the story. Still, it is a fun read. And, truly, there are few of us who never fantasized about the life we believe we are owed, or were jealous of another's success. 

I was given a free egalley by the publisher through NetGalley. My review is fair and unbiased.

Who is Maud Dixon?
by Alexandra Andrews
Little, Brown and Company
Pub Date March 2, 2021
ISBN: 9780316500319
hardcover $28.00 (USD)

from the publisher

Florence Darrow is a low-level publishing employee who believes that she's destined to be a famous writer. When she stumbles into a job the assistant to the brilliant, enigmatic novelist known as Maud Dixon — whose true identity is a secret — it appears that the universe is finally providing Florence’s big chance.

The arrangement seems perfect. Maud Dixon (whose real name, Florence discovers, is Helen Wilcox) can be prickly, but she is full of pointed wisdom -- not only on how to write, but also on how to live. Florence quickly falls under Helen’s spell and eagerly accompanies her to Morocco, where Helen’s new novel is set. Amidst the colorful streets of Marrakesh and the wind-swept beaches of the coast, Florence’s life at last feels interesting enough to inspire a novel of her own.

But when Florence wakes up in the hospital after a terrible car accident, with no memory of the previous night — and no sign of Helen — she’s tempted to take a shortcut. Instead of hiding in Helen’s shadow, why not upgrade into Helen's life? Not to mention her bestselling pseudonym . . .

Taut, twisty, and viciously entertaining, Who is Maud Dixon is a stylish psychological thriller about how far into the darkness you’re willing to go to claim the life you always wanted.

One of the Most Anticipated Books of 2021

GoodReads * LitHub * CrimeReads * Town & Country * New York Post * Wall Street Journal

about the author

Alexandra Andrews has worked as a journalist, editor and copywriter in New York and Paris. Who Is Maud Dixon? is her first novel. She lives in Brooklyn with her husband and children.

Why She Wrote: A Graphic History of the Lives, Inspiration, and Influence Behind the Pens of Classic Women Writers

Why She Wrote lifts up the stories of women writers of the 19th c., highlighting the contributions they made and the challenges they faced. In these pages, the women become super-heroes of their time, breaking down barriers. 

Presented in groups of three writers under a specific theme, the authors share a brief biography followed by an illustrated episode from their life. A full reading list is offered that includes each author's works and books about them for further reading.

It is a combination of a traditional biographical sketch with the graphic novel form, which I expect would appeal to younger readers. 

I wholeheartedly approve of any venture that brings classic writers--especially women writers--to the attention of readers.

I was given a free egalley by the publisher through NetGalley. My review is fair and unbiased.

Why She Wrote: A Graphic History of the Lives, Inspiration, and Influence Behind the Pens of Classic Women Writers
by Hannah K. Chapman and Lauren Burke, Illustrated by Kaley Bales
Chronicle Books
Pub Date:  April 20, 2021   
ISBN: 9781797202099
hardcover $19.95 (USD)

from the publisher

In Why She Wrote, dive into the fascinating, unexpected, and inspiring stories behind the greatest women writers in the English language.

This compelling graphic collection features 18 women—including Jane Austen, Louisa May Alcott, Alice Dunbar Nelson, Anne Lister, and more—and asks a simple question: in a time when being a woman writer often meant being undervalued, overlooked, or pigeonholed, why did she write?

Why did Jane Austen struggle to write for five years before her first novel was ever published? How did Edith Maude Eaton's writing change the narrative around Chinese immigrant workers in North America? Why did the Brontë sisters choose to write under male pennames, and Anne Lister write her personal diaries in code?

Learn about women writers from the 18th, 19th, and early 20th centuries, from familiar favorites to those who have undeservedly fallen into obscurity, and their often untold histories, including:

• The forgotten mother of the gothic genr
• The unexpected success of Little Women
• The diaries of the ""first modern lesbian""
• The lawsuit to protect Little Lord Fauntleroy
• The personal account of a mastectomy in 1811
• Austen's struggles with writer's block
• And much, much more!

Why She Wrote highlights a significant moment from each writer's life and retells it through engaging and accessible comics, along with biographical text, bibliographies, and fun facts. For aspiring writers, literary enthusiasts, and the Janeite who has everything, this new collection highlights these incredible women's hardships, their influence, and the spark that called them to write.

The Souvenir Museum by Elizabeth McCracken

The stories in The Souvenir Museum  are a delight. Elizabeth McCracken's cleverness had me laughing out loud, but her quirky characters also elicit emotional investment and deeper reflections on life and love. One paragraph, I would be laughing and quoting lines to my husband, and another paragraph I felt my heart tugged. 

McCracken's characters struggle with love, finding it or losing it, committing or running away.

A woman with a broken heart checks into a hotel and meets a well-known radio personalty who dealt out terrible advice. He suggests that she is young and that she must 'change her life, and to be kind, even when life is cruel. 

A father takes his river-loving son rafting at a theme park, embarking on a fearful journey, imagining "The Raft of the Medusa at the Waterpark." 

A boy runs away to study with a ventriloquist. The story gave me my 'Sunday Sentence' on Twitter:

His body hadn't changed yet, but his soul had: this year he had developed delusions of grandeur and a morbid nature and a willingness to die for love; next year, pubic hair and broad shoulders.~ from The Souvenir Museum by Elizabeth McCracken 

A children's program actress imagines suicide, and on a cruise falls for a man who makes balloon animals. 

What could be sadder in a marriage than incompatible feelings about bagpipes? Ought they still marry?~from The Souvenir Museum by Elizabeth McCracken 

You can read one of the stories, Two Sad Clowns, published in O the Oprah Magazine here. It begins with the the marvelous sentence, "Even Punch and Judy were in love once." The story is the beginning of Jack and Sadie's love affair; the couple appear in four of the stories.

Who can predict the vicissitudes of life?~ from The Souvenir Museum by Elizabeth McCracken

Twenty years into their relationship, Jack convinces Sadie to marry and they honeymoon in Amsterdam. Discovering they are going the wrong way through a museum, the reluctant bride asks, Do you think we should start at the beginning?  Her new husband answers, no; let's fight the current. Stick to your mistake."

Perhaps that is the best way to live. Own your mistakes. Own going against the current. Why question things we can not change? Love the unsuitable. Embrace our imperfect life.

Entertaining and thoughtful, these stories are wonderful.

I received a free galley from the publisher through NetGalley. My review is fair and unbiased.

The Souvenir Museum: Stories
by Elizabeth McCracken
Ecco
Pub Date: April 13, 2021 
ISBN: 9780062971289
hardcover $26.99 (USD)

from the publisher

A Most Anticipated Book From: OprahMag.com * Refinery 29 * Seattle Times * LitHub * Houston Chronicle * The Millions * Buzzfeed

Award-winning author Elizabeth McCracken is an undisputed virtuoso of the short story, and this new collection features her most vibrant and heartrending work to date

In these stories, the mysterious bonds of family are tested, transformed, fractured, and fortified. A recent widower and his adult son ferry to a craggy Scottish island in search of puffins. An actress who plays a children’s game-show villainess ushers in the New Year with her deadbeat half brother. A mother, pining for her children, feasts on loaves of challah to fill the void. A new couple navigates a tightrope walk toward love. And on a trip to a Texas water park with their son, two fathers each confront a personal fear. 

With sentences that crackle and spark and showcase her trademark wit, McCracken traces how our closely held desires—for intimacy, atonement, comfort—bloom and wither against the indifferent passing of time. Her characters embark on journeys that leave them indelibly changed—and so do her readers. The Souvenir Museum showcases the talents of one of our finest contemporary writers as she tenderly takes the pulse of our collective and individual lives.

Things I Never Understood #2: Great Rooms

The Great Room 

A dozen years ago I found myself arguing with a church committee in charge of designing and building a new church parsonage. They had planned for the front door to open into a great room that encompassed the living, dining, and kitchen area.

I was appalled. No parsonage family wanted a parishioner to come to the door and be able to see their private living space. And parishioners did sometimes come to the door to see the pastor. Sometimes strangers with needs came looking for the pastor.

I imagined myself snuggled down in my robe and slippers for a long evening's quilting when the doorbell rings. I would have to scurry into hiding before the door opened, and remain in hiding until they left. What about the toys scattered about, or the dog fur that still needed to be vacuumed up? I would be open to judgement. 

No, I explained, a door opening to show the entire house was against parsonage codes requiring privacy for the pastoral family. They changed to plan to include an entry hallway and a french door to the great room.

Today's Detroit Free Press has an article by Carol J. Alexander about housing trends to come, and she wrote that "open floor plans are out." The pandemic has people working at home and she notes that 

"This year, expect to see homeowners spending less time knocking down walls to open up shared areas, and more time transforming spare rooms or nooks into dedicated spaces. That might mean adding a home office or home theater, for instance, or transforming a nook into a space for distance-learning.Closets have been turned into offices, and extra bedrooms, and basement nooks. People need a room of their own to work in." 

Will the pandemic knoll the end of the Great Room trend?

For most of history, people lived in a shared space, and in many cultures and social strata, shared one bed. The idea of a room of one's own came much later in history. "Privacy was an eighteenth-century innovation," Fernand Braudel wrote in The Structures of Everyday Life. Houses became divided into receptions rooms for entertainment, a public room for show, and private family rooms. Samuel Pepys had his closet where he wrote his diary and kept his books, which he often mentioned in his diary. The concept of privacy gave us houses with many rooms.

So why the Great Room trend? According to television reality show home buyers, it's so that mothers can work in the kitchen and see what the children are doing.

Golly. When I was a tot, Mom set me into a chicken wire fenced area in the yard, gave me some toys, and went back inside to do whatever she was doing. When I became tired and complained, she threw a baggie of crackers out the window. (Of course, those were also the days when parents spanked kids for whining and being defiant and I don't recommend this.)

Me in the yard

When our son was playing outside in the sandbox, I kept an eye on him from the window or the enclosed porch. But when we were indoors, I generally could tell what he was up to without seeing him every minute. And if need be, I set him up with Mr Rogers or Reading Rainbow or Mary Popkins for a while. The hyper-vigilant 1990s Moms thought we were awfully lax. 

And so, open spaces became listed as the number one must for all home buyers. You could watch the kids. You could visit with company while preparing the meal. Women were not isolated in the kitchen while everyone else socialized.

But, all I could think of was the noise! The echoing, endless noise! 

I grew up with walls and rooms in houses built in 1900 and 1920. Our current 1966 home has a living room separate from the eat-in kitchen, which is open to the family room with doors to the patio. This is as 'open concept' as we can tolerate. Hubby complains he can't hear the TV in the family room over the electric tea pot boiling. 

My office is in the largest bedroom, furthest from the television room, with several walls and a hall between me and the kitchen. I can look out the front window and see the pear tree in bloom, watch for deliveries and the mail. And I can write in peace.

What a luxury! To have a room of my own. (And note the colorful walls, also on trend!)