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On May 18th, I attended a talk by Jeannette Walls, who wrote a memoir called The Glass Castle. I had not heard of her or read her book, but I am always interested in other writers and their experiences, so I went. I decided to read her book beforehand; I devoured it in under 24 hours.
The book is well-written and noticeably devoid of judgments, despite the fact this woman’s story is one of crazy family interactions, abject poverty, and child-rearing that consists of neglect and abuse. One of the many miracles in this book is that Jeannette and her three siblings grew up to be successful adults despite the irresponsible role models they had in their alcoholic father and self-centered mother.
Over and over, the children take care of themselves as well as their parents, in extreme and horrible circumstances. When their parents’ arguments were loud enough to be heard in the street, the children played in the yard, hoping to convince the gathering neighbors that nothing was wrong. The children asked their parents for basic things – stop drinking; get a job; why don’t you sell that old jewelry/ring/land so we can eat? – and got nowhere. They were much clearer on what was happening in the house than the adults were; they knew what was needed but were unable to bring about the changes themselves. They found ways to survive, but they were difficult ways, and their core needs were never met by their parents.
Despite their beginnings, all the children worked their way out of the dead-end West Virginia town they lived in and made the move to New York City. They got apartments, jobs, and educations all on their own. The only real help they had was from one another. All of them became successful professionally, except for the youngest, who had a breakdown and is apparently still in a place her sister is not comfortable talking about.
Their parents followed them to New York and continued to live the marginal, hand-to-mouth existence they always had. They slept under bridges and in abandoned buildings. They dug Christmas presents out of dumpsters. They thought nothing was wrong with their lifestyle and it was clearly a choice. While he was homeless and unemployed, their father made $950 gambling so his daughter could finish her college degree.
Jeannette and her siblings were in the awkward position of being better off than their parents and unable to help them despite a laudable desire to do so. The siblings tried in many ways, but in the end, their parents were who they were. Nothing Jeannette or the others did or said ever changed that. Even the one thing Jeannette said that affected her father drastically (“please stop drinking”) only had a temporary effect.
Jeannette Walls herself is amazing. She is positive, optimistic, and sees that her difficult childhood has given her the ability to deal well with adversity and obstacles as an adult. She knows the difference between want and need. She still marvels at some of the things she has today (like a thermostat and the ability to buy anything in the grocery store), and yet she thinks everything is – and has been – great. She has pulled the gem out of every dismal situation she has survived and made herself a crown of glory. Her message is full of hope: you too can overcome your difficulties. Life is worth living, even though it may at times be less than pleasant. We are all equal, complex, interesting, gifted, compassionate, and flawed beings. Everything is a blessing and a curse; you choose how to perceive it.
I stood in line a long time to get my book signed. When I got to the table, I complimented Jeannette on the book and her writing, and asked if it was traumatic to write. She said it was. She got the draft done in 6 weeks, but it took five more years to get honest. She said initially everything was written at a journalist’s distance and she really had to work to get to her own feelings about her childhood. I wasn’t at all surprised by her answer and it was clear she felt it was all worth the effort. Not only did she learn while she was writing the book, but the discussions she has had since with her many readers have taught her even more. It’s heartening to think that her readers daily confirm what she believes – that we are all compassionate and understanding beings, so there is nothing for us to fear or hide.
Another great movie came my way recently. Before I watched it, I knew Martian Child was about a writer played by John Cusack. I guessed that I would like this movie (being a sucker for both stories about writers and John Cusack in general), but it turned out to be even better than I expected.
John Cusack plays David Gordon, a successful science fiction author living under a cloud. His beloved wife has been dead for two years, and he has been isolated and grieving. As a couple, they had planned on adopting a child, but that dream died with his wife. When David gets a call from a social worker about a child she thinks might be right for him, David shows up in person just to say no. Despite his determined non-interest, David begins to learn things about Dennis, the boy the social worker wants him to adopt, and his curiosity gets the better of him. When asked why the social worker thought he would be a good parent for Dennis, she tells him that the boy believes he is from Mars.
We all know that Dennis is going to wind up living in David’s house, at least for a while. What you can’t predict about this movie is what the boy will do and why, and how far David will go to help him. Dennis has a clear understanding of who he is – a Martian on Earth – and that he has to learn how to be human. As a result, David runs into many challenges as he integrates Dennis into his life. He gets advice of all kinds from his sister (who has kids) and his sister-in-law (who does not). He works hard to live with Dennis on his own terms, to support him in his world vision so he can become whole again. His efforts are simultaneously sweet, sincere, and funny. In the end, healing needs to occur on both sides, and eventually it does.
As I would have predicted, John Cusack is at his best as the intelligent but quirky David. What I didn’t expect was the moving performance by Bobby Coleman as Dennis or the beauty of the film as a whole. Dennis is seriously shut down emotionally, and Coleman does a good job of getting across the fear that is just under the surface of his strange habits and beliefs. The director Menno Meyjes enhances this performance through beautiful cinematography that is in complete harmony with the dialogue and plot. When Dennis’s explorations uncover the beauties in the world around him, the shots and scenery fill us with wonder and awe. When David begins to rant about the speed of the Earth around the sun and the sun through the galaxy, the lights outside of the car windows turn into colorful streaks, reminiscent of the blurred stars seen at warp speed. A hyper-reality is achieved, one that is both beautiful and believable.
Martian Child was delightful and touching. Long before I knew how the story would end, I was in love with this movie. The care taken by the director and the many great actors involved shows in every scene and was stunning right from the start. I can’t wait to watch this jewel of a movie again. And again. And again.
Actually, I didn’t go anywhere. But I’ve been busy with two writing projects, and they’ve kept me from writing for my blog. One is a joint writing project I’m working on with a friend, which is loads of fun to work on. The other is Script Frenzy.
Script Frenzy is Nanowrimo for scripts – you write a script (movie, TV, play, whatever) in 30 days. The event is held every April, and this is my first year to try it. Anything is fair game, including adaptations of your own, or someone else’s, work. So I decided to get a better handle on the key parts of the novel I wrote last November by distilling it into a script. It was a fun and educational process.
The goal is to write 100 pages, which actually isn’t much once you apply the formal movie script format to the writing. There’s lots of white space in a properly formatted script. My script wound up being 118 pages long. I made a point of getting my story wrapped up, and had the fun of writing a montage of “where are they now?” scenes to cap off my movie. It’s not a work of art, but it is a complete draft, and should be useful when I get around to editing the book.
I highly recommend giving this a try if you have any interest in writing or happen to love movies. It gave me a whole new perspective on the challenges of telling a story on film and I now watch movies with added appreciation.
This is the hour of lead
Remembered if outlived
As freezing persons recollect
The snow -
First chill, then stupor, then
The letting go.
–Emily Dickinson
Research is good for me. It’s leading me to books I would never even look at normally and Hour of Gold, Hour of Lead is one of these. In this case I feel like I’ve found a treasure, or rather, met an extraordinary person.
First: why this book? I’ve got a character in a novel whose wife is kidnapped and killed about ten years before the book starts. I wanted to find out what it is like for the survivors of such a tragedy, and checked out of the library a variety of crime books, most of which were too violent for me to read. Then I had a brain storm. The famous kidnapping of the Lindbergh’s baby in 1932 is the kind of event I’m interested in, and also a story that isn’t too horrific for me to deal with. I found out that Anne Morrow Lindbergh published her letters and diaries in a series of books that included the key years – leading up to the kidnapping, covering the kidnapping and discovery of her son’s body, and the prosecution and conviction of the criminal. So I started with Hour of Gold, Hour of Lead, which covers the years 1929-1932. I wanted to have a sense of who this woman was before I got to the events I am interested in, so I started at the beginning of the book. Am I ever glad I did.
Anne Morrow Lindbergh was a charming young woman who lived an extraordinary life. She traveled with her husband, the famous pilot Charles Lindbergh, all over the world, mapping potential flight routes and promoting commerical air travel when it was in its infancy. Anne loved flying. She was both a pilot and a radio operator. She was also enchanted by the many places they visited on their long tours; included in this book are descriptions of a tour of South America and another of the Orient.
Not everything was wonderful, however. The Lindberghs were news, big news, and the American press hounded them constantly. They could not go out into public without being accosted and the press would often follow them to the retreats they had hoped would stay private. Charles schooled Anne in how to evade questions and give noncommital answers, and she complained more than once of having to be reserved even in her writing for secrecy’s sake. This fame would lead to the kidnapping of their baby.
In 1930, Anne bore their first son. Charles, Jr. was often on Anne’s mind, even when they were on opposite sides of the world from each other. Knowing that her son was taken from her, I was sensitive to her concerns about him. More than once, she begged a trusted relative to stay with Charles, Jr., because she was afraid the press would take advantage of the Lindberghs’ absence and of their staff’s inexperience with reporters. Six months before her son disappeared, Anne quoted a poem she heard in China, written by a mother about her dead son. If thus was fiction, these little touches would seem like artistic foreshadowing. Unfortunately, they are real, and they make the reader aware just how much Anne loved her son and feared for him. When tragedy finally strikes, her tortured hopes and loss of faith in the world are all the more poignant to the reader.
Anne’s diary entries and letters from the disappearance of her baby on March 1, 1932 to the end of that year expose the full range of emotions she experienced, and the many conflicting thoughts. Their second son, Jon, was born on August 15th and Anne experienced a wonderful, though brief, return of her faith in the world. She realized even before his birth that Jon could never erase her memories of Charlie, but that he would give her new experiences as a mother. She respected Jon as an individual even in his earliest days. Whenever memories of Charlie caused Anne to panic about keeping Jon safe, she always reminded herself she must not let her terror negatively affect Jon’s life.
The next book is Locked Rooms and Open Doors (1933-35) which will include the capture and trial of the man who killed Charlie Lindbergh, which is the rest of the reading I need to do for my novel. I’ve decided to go back and read Bring Me a Unicorn (1922-28) as well. My interest in Anne is now much more than academic and I can’t wait to read her observations and thoughts about meeting and falling in love with Charles Lindbergh. It’s not on my official list of topics to research, but she is too special to abandon without hearing her whole story.
I’m currently doing research which means I bring stacks of books home from the library and then try to figure out which ones I actually need to read. The Suspicions of Mr. Whicher: A Shocking Murder and the Undoing of a Great Victorian Detective was probably not one of them, but unlike some of the more modern crime books sitting on my desk at the moment, it was one I knew I could read without having nightmares afterwards.
Kate Summerscale tells the story of a murder in 1860 that might easily have inspired one of Agatha Christie’s country manor murder mysteries. In fact, Summerscale’s presentation is designed to invoke just such a comparison, and the author herself points out the many connections between this real-life mystery and contemporary literature written by Charles Dickens, Wilkie Collins, Edgar Allan Poe, and others.
Mr. Whicher, the detective of the title, was one of the first detectives ever, part of the eight-man department opened at Scotland Yard in 1842. By the time of the murder in 1860, Whicher has a well-earned reputation for getting his man.
The first section of the book, which is written like a classic English whodunit, covers the day leading up to and including the murder itself. A three-year-old boy disappears in the middle of the night and his body is found with his throat cut. A murder apparently without motive leads to suspicions about everyone in the household from the lowly nursemaid to the tyrannical father. Two weeks of stumbling around bring the local police no closer to the answer and in desperation they call in Scotland yard.
The book begins to stray from the classical fictional mystery format when we are introduced to Detective Jonathan Whicher. We follow him as he looks far and wide for information regarding the case. He is certain before long that he knows who killed the boy and when the arrest is made, the villagers go wild. The only thing more shocking to the Victorians than the violent death of a child is the thought that an adolescent might be responsible.
Due to bad handling of both the witnesses and the leads during the inquest, the case is not brought to trial and Whicher returns to London in defeat. He goes on with his life, and the investigations around the Road Hill murder go on without him. Public views sway with the wind, and solutions to the mystery are sent to Scotland Yard by citizens from all over the country. As in any good mystery where there is insufficient evidence to nail the culprit, the murderer is caught only because she confesses.
While Whicher is vindicated, the evidence still doesn’t quite add up. Summerscale points out the oddities, which were glossed over at the time, and, using documents that were discovered in the last century, proposes her own solution with credibility.
I was less enthusiastic about this book by the time I reached the end. The familiar structure of the beginning had me thinking in terms of fiction instead of reality. Real life is full of dead and loose ends, and even with the author’s theories to wrap up what she can, the book ends with questions unanswered, questions that will never be answered. And the title is overly dramatic. The story is far from shocking to a modern reader; our media inundate us with far too many horrors for this one to be of any surprise.
All in all, it’s a good book. It gives a taste of English life in the mid-1800s that includes the tension between the classes and vivid details of daily life. The exploration of public opinion and its effects on the case show that in many ways people haven’t changed. In 1860, everyone had a theory who killed Saville Kent and facts didn’t enter into it. The majority of the solutions were designed to make the unpopular responsible for the death. For anyone familiar with the works referred to, there is the added interest of seeing how the first mystery novels were shaped by the times in general and this case and this detective in particular.
The Suspicions of Mr. Whicher: A Shocking Murder and the Undoing of a Great Victorian Detective by Kate Summerscale, Walker & Company, 2008.
