Page 2: Leonard Marcus – Listening for Madeleine
In April 2004, forty years after A Wrinkle in Time, The New Yorker featured a profile of Madeleine L’Engle, inferring the 85-year-old writer grossly misled readers about her marriage and her family life. In the profile, writer Cynthia Zarin failed to mention L’Engle’s rapid physical and mental decline over the previous five years. Instead, Zarin detailed L’Engle’s description of the invisible alligators lying in wait under the dining chairs. Zarin seemed to suggest that Madeleine L’Engle had only ever been living in a fantasy.
Perhaps it is because of that damning profile that Marcus’ Listening for Madeleine provides enough delight to relieve my eight-year-long grudge against Zarin. One friend calls L’Engle “regal,” while a former copy-editor describes her as imperious. Thomas Cahill says she was the kindest person, followed by a colleague who “would never call her kind.” One says she was so vulnerable, and the next paints an iron lady. Highly disciplined, terribly undisciplined. Completely lonely; utterly connected. Somehow Marcus finds a way to thread each interview to the next, so that each glimpse contradicts the last in a believable way. One cousin calls stubborn family quirks “L’Engle-arities,” confessing that Madeleine held onto all the available L’Engle-arities.
*** Our recent playlist of favorite L’Engle Books.
More than a dozen of those interviewed say the Madeleine L’Engle of the New Yorker profile is not the Madeleine they knew. Several sympathize with her attempt to protect her husband, her parents, and her children from exposure, and some see why she might cling to stubborn misinterpretations of events. Marcus’ book ends with none other than Cynthia Zarin, in a striking discussion about the journey from fan to biographer. Zarin says L’Engle’s family insisted that she tell their side of the story. In Marcus’ collection, the voices of L’Engle’s grown-up children do contradict Summer of the Great-Grandmother, and they contradict one another, as well. The family questions their matriarch’s legacy, and ultimately they support that legacy, too. Madeleine L’Engle died in 2007, in a nursing home near her family in Goshen, Connecticut.
From the time I was a teenager sinking into the character of Meg Murray, I craved more of Madeleine L’Engle’s story. For me, Listening for Madeleine has the feel of her time-travel tales: I read one section, then I return to another section, rereading until a multi-faceted picture holds for a shimmering moment. I saved the interview with Luci Shaw for last, knowing I would like to end my meditation on Madeleine L’Engle with her close friend, a voice I love and trust.
Fans owe Leonard Marcus a great debt of gratitude. I’m struck by the brilliant choice of a structure for a book that becomes more than it initially appears: it becomes a study of the mystery of celebrity, of persona, of writing, family, and love. As a long-time reader and fan, Listening for Madeleine has given me hours of intrigue and joy. As a lover of truth, Marcus’ book makes me remember why I reread Madeleine L’Engle’s writing, and I find her all the more starshot, odd, and beautiful in this remarkable compilation.
C. Christopher Smith is the founding editor of The Englewood Review of Books. He is also author of a number of books, including most recently How the Body of Christ Talks: Recovering the Practice of Conversation in the Church (Brazos Press, 2019). Connect with him online at: C-Christopher-Smith.com
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