Posts Tagged ‘little women’

“November is the most disagreeable month in the whole year,” said Margaret, standing at the window one dull afternoon, looking out at the frostbitten garden.

“That’s the reason I was born in it,” observed Jo pensively, quite unconscious of the blot on her nose.

Now that November is coming to an end, it’s time to celebrate the birthday of Louisa May Alcott, who was born on this day in 1832.  And so, you’re in for a treat…Kelly O’Connor McNees, author of The Lost Summer of Louisa May Alcott , is here to give her thoughts on the very human LMA.  Welcome, Kelly!

I have always loved Little Women, of course, but Little Women is not really what made me want to write a novel about Louisa May Alcott. If I had never read any other novels or stories written by Louisa, nor any of the books written about her, I probably would have gone on happily rereading Little Women each year around Christmastime and not thinking very much about the woman who created it.

But one day in the library I picked up a copy of Martha Saxton’s biography of Louisa May Alcott. It stirred something in me and suddenly I wanted to read everything in the Alcott solar system but Little Women. This includes dozens and dozens of stories, a few novels, and one piece of thinly disguised journalism about her experience as a nurse during the Civil War. Next, I turned to Louisa’s collected letters and journals and the biographies by Madeline Stern and John Matteson.

The narrative voice of Little Women is polished and reserved, a spinster aunt telling a group of children a cozy story in which she has no personal stake. But the voice and content of Louisa’s other work, not to mention her letters and journals, is immediate and vibrant. This writing and the biographies reveal her to have been a person of intense and changing states of mind, one who was, in turns, passionate, depressed, prickly, angry, manic, lonely, and full of good humor. In other words, Louisa May Alcott was a real person. And realizing that is what made me want to write a novel about her.

I could list the facts that usually scandalize and/or surprise fans of gentle-mannered Little Women, and there are plenty—Louisa wrote sensational tales under a pen name and was very much motivated by money; she wrote about love gone violently awry, stalkers, and illegitimate children, as well as the experience of opium, to which she became addicted after years of chronic pain—but a mere list, without the context that life, day in and out, provides, seems to me a boring exercise.

I was and am interested in the choices Louisa made each day in her attempt to cultivate a certain kind of life that was rare indeed for a woman in her time: A life of independence and fulfilling work. We know, looking back, that she was destined to become one of the most famous women in human history, but until, at age 35, she wrote the book that became a bestseller, she did not know what the future held. And, yet, she rose each day and wrote until her hand cramped, determined to persevere to publication—not to be lauded, but so that she could provide for her family. Where does that drive come from? What hopes and wounds resided in the heart of this real woman? That’s the question I wrote The Lost Summer of Louisa May Alcott to answer.

Kelly O’Connor McNees is a former editorial assistant and English teacher. Born and raised in Michigan, she has lived in New York, Rhode Island, and Ontario and now resides with her husband in Chicago. The Lost Summer of Louisa May Alcott is her first novel.

Welcome to October, a month of writing, of working, of striving, and of celebrating.  I’m not sure how it’s possible, but The Heroine’s Bookshelf comes out in 19 days!  In the meantime, I find that a heroine is well-suited by October:

• ramblings
• conversations with dear friends
• rifling through the kitchen to find where the tea is
• thinking hard about best cardigan to value ratio
• shirking raking duty whenever possible!

How about you?  What’s on a heroine’s docket this October?

Jo was very busy in the garret, for the October days began to grow chilly, and the afternoons were short. For two or three hours the sun lay warmly in the high window, showing Jo seated on the old sofa, writing busily, with her papers spread out upon a trunk before her, while Scrabble, the pet rat, promenaded the beams overhead, accompanied by his oldest son, a fine young fellow, who was evidently very proud of his whiskers.

Quite absorbed in her work, Jo scribbled away till the last page was filled, when she signed her name with a flourish and threw down her pen, exclaiming…
“There, I’ve done my best! If this won’t suit I shall have to wait till I can do better.”
- Little Women, Louisa May Alcott

Be patient, Jo, don’t get despondent or do rash things, write to me often, and be my brave girl, ready to help and cheer all.

- Marmee’s last words as she leaves to take care of Father in Washington, Little Women by Louisa May Alcott

When I update my friends and (gulp) fans about book progress, there always seem to be a million unanswered questions.  Is there a cover yet?  Have you seen it in print?  When will it be in stores?  Have any of the foreign rights sold?  How will you possibly wait until October to hold your book in your hands?  Believe me, these are questions I share, too.

From sale (May 1, 2009) to publication (October 19, 2010) will have been just about a year and six months.  But before that came an even longer wait…three years of having an agent and no book to sell, years before that writing books that will (thank God) never see the light of day, waiting, working, and more waiting.  And I’m one of the lucky ones.  So many writers wait what seems like eons before finding the right publisher or agent for their work, before honing their craft or moving on or finding their perfect project.

Like Jo March, patience has never exactly been my strong suit.  I am quick to solidify an impression and even quicker to get flustered when things don’t go my way.  So this entire process has been an exercise in self-control.  Now that the years seem to speed by like unruly comets, I know that October will be here before I know it.  My challenge is to fill the wait with both enjoyment (this is my only time to enjoy being a first-time author, to experience the mystery of seeing my debut come into the world) and productivity (it’s time to get cracking on other projects so there is some kind of literary future ahead of me).  When people used to ask me about being a writer, my first question would be “how hard are you willing to work?”  Now I add “how are you at the whole waiting thing?” to the mix.  A heroine might not always be patient, but she can learn to love the wait, right?

Wintry Colorado can be an unforgiving place, especially with single-digit temperatures and March (usually our snowiest month) still ahead.  I’ve got tea to warm my fingers, but my thoughts are turning to food…the kinds of food my literary heroines would have enjoyed.  This morning I saw an article featuring a Mock Cherry Pie (recipe below) attributed to none other than Lucy Maud Montgomery of Anne of Green Gables fame.  It made me wonder what other recipes actually attributed to “my” authors could be found online?

The yummy results follow.  Each is directly attributed to one of my favorite authors or one of her family members.  Also, how awful is it that I’ve given up sweets for Lent?  I know what I’ll be preparing Easter Sunday.

Lucy Maud Montgomery’s Mock Cherry Pie

Food fakery is a vital heroine skill.  Don’t have cherries?  Cranberries and raisins will do just as well!  This recipe is attributed to Maud, whose Marilla admonishes:  “You’ve got to keep your wits about you in cooking and not stop in the middle of things to let your thoughts rove all over creation.” (Prefer raspberry cordial or some other dishes mentioned in the Anne books?  This link’s for you.)

Pastry for a double-crust 9-inch pie
2 cups cranberries, chopped
1 cup raisins, chopped
1 1/2 cups granulated sugar
2 tablespoons flour
1 cup cold water
1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla

Line a 9-inch pie plate with half the pastry. Make a lattice crust with remaining dough.  In a saucepan, combine cranberries, raisins, sugar, flour and water; bring to a boil, reduce heat and simmer for 15 minutes, stirring occasionally. Remove from heat and let cool slightly. Stir in vanilla.  Turn filling into pastry-lined pie plate. Moisten edge with water and top with lattice crust.  Bake at 425 degrees F for 15 minutes. Reduce heat to 350 degrees F and bake another 20 to 30 minutes, or until crust is nicely browned and filling is bubbly. Serves six.

Louisa May Alcott’s Blancmange

Did you ever read Little Women and wonder, like me, what the heck blancmange is?  I am led to believe that it is a kind of sweet, white flan, as sweet and white as the plump hands of Meg March, whom I can imagine creating this blancmange and complaining over her unfashionable gowns.  You will recall that Jo brings a blancmange to Laurie when he is sick as a sort of wedge into his house and heart.  She succeeds.  This recipe is attributed to Abba Alcott, Louisa’s mother.

2 tbsp arrowroot
1 quart milk
1/2 cup sugar, more to taste
1 pinch salt
Something savory – orange water, rose water, or lemon peel

Take two tablespoonfuls of arrowroot to one quart of milk and a pinch of salt. Scald the milk, sweeten it with sugar to taste and then stir in the arrowroot, which must first be wet with some milk. Let it boil once. Orange water, rose water, or lemon peel can be used to flavor it. Pour it into molds to cool.

Laura Ingalls Wilder’s Gingerbread

Whenever I gain a pound, I blame Laura, whose description of crackling pig tails, bountiful pies, and tables laden with the goodness of hardy, sensible pioneer cooking are enough to drive any girl face-first into a pile of biscuits.  Though it’s easy to find recipes inspired by the Little House books, it’s harder to find ones directly attributed to Laura that aren’t protected by copyright.  Here’s one to start with:

1 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup lard (fine, shortening will do)
1 cup molasses
2 tsp baking soda
1 cup boiling water
3 cups flour
1 tsp ginger
1 tsp allspice
1 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp nutmeg
1 tsp ground cloves
1/2 tsp salt
2 eggs

Blend brown sugar with lard.  Mix in molasses until well-coated.  Dissolve baking soda in boiling water (be sure cup is full of water after foam runs off into cake mixture).  Mix well.  In a separate bowl, mix flour with spices and salt.  Sift into wet mixture and mix well; mixture will be “quite thin.”  Finally, add two well-beaten eggs and bake in a moderate (350 degrees) for thirty minutes.

One of the most gratifying parts of writing The Heroine’s Bookshelf was discovering the backstories behind the women who wrote some of my favorite books.  And it wasn’t all fun and friends.  During the course of the book, I got to look at the underbelly of some of these women’s lives:  depression, chronic illness, opium addiction, adultery, even suicide.   And you know what?  I loved every minute.

Why embrace the serious sides of my literary heroines when many of them left such happy, pert, intelligent women as their legacy?  (Anne of Green Gables or Lizzie Bennet, anyone?)  Why not just focus on the picture they wanted to present to the world…the picture of the productive, happy writer who left her dirty laundry between two covers and moved on with life?

I was reminded of this question when reading this article about Louisa May Alcott and Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s dirty little opium secrets (or not-so-secrets, as the case may be).  For me, the answer is all about context.  When we look at the real lives of these writers, their accomplishments in the face of great trials and hardships are even more impressive.  Louisa May Alcott wrote her books in a state of constant, crushing financial worry…and if she hadn’t known what it was like to be poor, she could never have given us the image of four sisters sewing their way through dire straits and attempting to burden the load they must shoulder.  Could Charlotte Brontë have made Jane Eyre‘s Lowood School so terrifying if she herself had not survived a similar experience?

Now that I know the backstory behind my favorite books, I feel even more grateful that these women took time out of their lives to give something to us, people they never met or even imagined.  Not that I subscribe to the thought that writers must be tortured (that’s probably material for a whole ‘nother post), but I think they’re at least allowed to be human.  When we deny a Jane Austen or a Frances Hodgson Burnett her humanity, we miss out on the rest of the story.