My mom's unfinished novel
Dec. 18th, 2025 03:59 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kathleen_daileyIn anticipation of yet another downsizing, I spent a snowy and cold couple of days urging my cranky shredder to cope with piles of old photos and documents. Having no children, grandchildren, or surviving relatives to pass them along to (and who probably wouldn't want them anyway), I finally had to admit that it was time for them to go.
Among the documents was the typewritten MS of my mother's unfinished novel.
Desperate for a way out of a miserable marriage, with a tenth-grade education and unqualified for any kind of job (she'd been a successful fashion model in her young years, but middle age and the blatant ageism that was characteristic of the industry and the period put an end to fantasies of resuming that career), my mother found inspiration in Grace Metalious, the author of Peyton Place. She hoped that somehow her book would become a bestseller like Metalious's, bringing money and independence. She spent a lot of time reading Writer's Digest and internalizing its pointers on markets, agents, and the mechanics of the craft.
As a spoiled only child, I was both bored and annoyed by her project, since it had nothing to do with ME ME ME. Her characters (who were, à la Metalious, engaged in various infidelities and scandals), setting (the Great Depression), and theme (class divisions and exploitation, though she wouldn't have put it that way) were of no interest to me. Reading her work as an adult, however, I was struck with how credible a job she'd done.
Despite her lack of education and writing experience, she taught herself to handle POVs fairly consistently, create scene transitions, and keep track of her numerous characters and plot threads. Her prose was surprisingly workmanlike, and if she'd been able to complete the book she might have had an actual story with a beginning, middle, and end. She couldn't bring herself to write the kind of explicit--for the time--sex scenes and salacious storylines that earned Metalious and other authors of the period so much money and notoriety, and I'm pretty sure she would have had a nearly impossible time finding an agent. I'll never know, because she died before she finished the novel.
I hung on to the MS for decades, carrying it from house to house and country to country, thinking that someday maybe I'd be able to do something with it. But that never happened, and until I started clearing out cupboards and drawers I wasn't even sure where I'd stored it.
Even if I had the drive and stamina to edit or rewrite the MS, it's clear that there wasn't enough raw material for me to ascertain where she was ultimately going with it. I'd hoped that at least I might recognize some bits of her life or personality in the story, but apart from detailed descriptions of ladies' fashions there wasn't much to be found. If the Wisconsin country shopkeeper, the society matron from Chicago's north shore, or the 10-year-old girl neglected in favour of her bratty younger brother represented persons from my mom's real life, or aspects of herself, I never heard or knew about them.
Not only was my mom a novelist, she also devoted a lot of time and creative energy to songwriting, and for the same reason--she wanted to make enough money to get free. I found at least a dozen 45 rpm demo records along with sheet music for all of them. She'd connected somehow (for a fee, I'm sure) with various composers who created tunes and arrangements for her soft rock/pop lyrics. I have no idea whether, or to whom, she might have submitted the demos, but I know that nothing ever came of it.
I wish I'd been old enough and smart enough to ask my mother all the questions I'd like to ask her now. If any part of her consciousness is still in existence on some plane, maybe she'll be happy to know that her daughter became a book editor, wrote a lot of non-fiction and a bit of fiction, and produced a couple of CDs. I'd also like to imagine that her hand might have been guiding me in some of those activities.
Among the documents was the typewritten MS of my mother's unfinished novel.
Desperate for a way out of a miserable marriage, with a tenth-grade education and unqualified for any kind of job (she'd been a successful fashion model in her young years, but middle age and the blatant ageism that was characteristic of the industry and the period put an end to fantasies of resuming that career), my mother found inspiration in Grace Metalious, the author of Peyton Place. She hoped that somehow her book would become a bestseller like Metalious's, bringing money and independence. She spent a lot of time reading Writer's Digest and internalizing its pointers on markets, agents, and the mechanics of the craft.
As a spoiled only child, I was both bored and annoyed by her project, since it had nothing to do with ME ME ME. Her characters (who were, à la Metalious, engaged in various infidelities and scandals), setting (the Great Depression), and theme (class divisions and exploitation, though she wouldn't have put it that way) were of no interest to me. Reading her work as an adult, however, I was struck with how credible a job she'd done.
Despite her lack of education and writing experience, she taught herself to handle POVs fairly consistently, create scene transitions, and keep track of her numerous characters and plot threads. Her prose was surprisingly workmanlike, and if she'd been able to complete the book she might have had an actual story with a beginning, middle, and end. She couldn't bring herself to write the kind of explicit--for the time--sex scenes and salacious storylines that earned Metalious and other authors of the period so much money and notoriety, and I'm pretty sure she would have had a nearly impossible time finding an agent. I'll never know, because she died before she finished the novel.
I hung on to the MS for decades, carrying it from house to house and country to country, thinking that someday maybe I'd be able to do something with it. But that never happened, and until I started clearing out cupboards and drawers I wasn't even sure where I'd stored it.
Even if I had the drive and stamina to edit or rewrite the MS, it's clear that there wasn't enough raw material for me to ascertain where she was ultimately going with it. I'd hoped that at least I might recognize some bits of her life or personality in the story, but apart from detailed descriptions of ladies' fashions there wasn't much to be found. If the Wisconsin country shopkeeper, the society matron from Chicago's north shore, or the 10-year-old girl neglected in favour of her bratty younger brother represented persons from my mom's real life, or aspects of herself, I never heard or knew about them.
Not only was my mom a novelist, she also devoted a lot of time and creative energy to songwriting, and for the same reason--she wanted to make enough money to get free. I found at least a dozen 45 rpm demo records along with sheet music for all of them. She'd connected somehow (for a fee, I'm sure) with various composers who created tunes and arrangements for her soft rock/pop lyrics. I have no idea whether, or to whom, she might have submitted the demos, but I know that nothing ever came of it.
I wish I'd been old enough and smart enough to ask my mother all the questions I'd like to ask her now. If any part of her consciousness is still in existence on some plane, maybe she'll be happy to know that her daughter became a book editor, wrote a lot of non-fiction and a bit of fiction, and produced a couple of CDs. I'd also like to imagine that her hand might have been guiding me in some of those activities.
