On what turns out to be the last day of her life, a beloved poet reveals how she been raped and became pregnant by a disturbed soldier at the end of World War II, which, because of her popularity, she’d had to keep secret. Her poor choices, led by friends, family and cultural ‘norms’ lead to her downfall and suicide attempt where she learns valuable lessons about being true to herself and the strength she will need to obtain her goals.
On what turns out to be the last day of her life, a beloved poet reveals how she been raped and became pregnant by a disturbed soldier at the end of World War II, which, because of her popularity, she’d had to keep secret. Her poor choices, led by friends, family and cultural ‘norms’ lead to her downfall and suicide attempt where she learns valuable lessons about being true to herself and the strength she will need to obtain her goals.
My old agent, Carson Brookline, called me out of the blue a few weeks ago to tell me some French journalist had contacted him and asked if I could come to Paris for an interview.
I was surprised that I still held gravitas in France since I had long been out of the literary limelight, and it had been almost 20 years since I retired from my second job as an English professor. Still, the French had a reputation for treating older writers with respect, and my poetry had always sold well there, so I suppose it shouldn’t have come as a complete shock.
I told him I would love to go, especially since it had been quite a while since I was in Paris, but I didn’t think I was up for the trip since I hadn’t been feeling well lately. He asked about it, but I assured him it wasn’t serious. Perhaps just old age.
However, as soon as I hung up, a little bird told me I should do it. Maybe it was silly, but I had learned to pay attention to little inclinations like these and figured there wouldn’t be many more such opportunities. Plus, it was close to my birthday, and I wasn’t doing anything, so I decided to bite the bullet and go.
I called him right back and told him to make all the arrangements. The plan was for us to meet at The Hôtel de Crillon, always my first choice while in Paris and the perfect place to reminisce.
So, a few weeks later, having no idea what this was all about, I was waiting in my top-floor suite when the doorbell chimed, and I opened the door to find a likable jeune homme named Benedict LeFavre standing there.
He wore stylish glasses and a thin, narrow-collared black suit once popularized by the 1960s New Wave Cinema, which, curiously, was back in style and had a spiral steno pad sticking out of his patch pocket. After the obligatory kiss on each cheek, I invited him in.
We settled in the lovely sitting area overlooking the Place de Concorde, and I asked why he wanted to talk to someone like me. He explained while doing a story about what life was like for American women after the war, he heard about me and wanted to do a story about my life. This got my attention.
Though I had given many interviews over the years, Carson kept a lid on my personal life. He explained that as popular as I had become, the public would never accept my sexuality, marriage, the abandoned child, drug use, and family upbringing. Or my struggles as a writer.
I loved Carson so I went along with him, but it never sat well with me. It was true. My background was pretty messy, but those things were all part of who I was, and other women could have learned much from my mistakes and how I overcame them. But at the time, the practical realities of my profession came first, so I gave in.
However, the world had changed a lot over the decades, and the offer to finally get my story out intrigued me. These stories had been on my mind for years, and this could be my final chance. But the question I faced was, was I ready?
I looked at this intense young man on the other side of me, and I wasn’t sure. The reality was that, as anxious as I had always been to do this, I did harbor some reservations. For one thing, many people were involved, and many of these memories wouldn’t be pleasant.
Still, maybe if I got myself in the right frame of mind and knew how to do that in Paris. So I excused myself, picked up the phone, and shortly after, a bottle of vintage Dom Perignon arrived in the hotel’s signature engraved wine bucket, a little trinket I’d always coveted. I’d always felt you needed to properly present a good bottle of Champagne to set the right mood, and this one did the trick.
For a while, we sipped and began to talk.
As I glanced out at the monument next to the Tuileries, I was shocked by how much he knew about me.
‘You were a gay woman and writer in the 1950s. In the US, that must have been incredibly difficult.”
“Well, you had to keep it hidden. If you were in the wrong place, you could get arrested. Certainly, my public never knew. When I was young, even my best friends didn’t know.”
“And you had a difficult upbringing?”
“Well, the Irish immigrants brought a lot of problems with them, especially alcoholism.”
“And I understand you spent some time in a mental hospital?”
That was it. He had done his homework. I took a long breath.
“Well, I was only nineteen in 1945 when the war ended. I had a bright future ahead of me, with plans of going to Vassar and becoming a poet when the worst thing that could happen to any woman happened to me.”
“I didn’t know that.”
“No one knew.”
“How did you handle it?”
“Well, back then, there weren’t any resources for something like that. Besides, I grew up in Jersey City. I thought I was tough and could handle it.”
“Did you?”
“Are you kidding? I got addicted to drugs, tried to kill myself, and wound up in Greystone for a few months.”
“That sounds terrible.”
“It was, but that’s where I wrote my most famous poem, “Fool, Anticipation.'”
“How did that come about?”
“Well, it was because of a lovely woman from the city of Newark who was a room attendant there. We became friends, and I told her how I’d given up writing poetry, and she told me I needed to write again, so I did. One lovely spring day in 1950, I found myself curled up in an old Adirondack chair, barefoot and sporting the latest fashion in hospital gowns, on the lawn of a mental hospital in New Jersey, crumpling up page after page in disgust. When I looked down at the pages littering the grass, I realized I was on the lawn of a Goddamned mental hospital and trying to write something pleasant. That’s when I changed. I got angry for the first time in my life, and real words flowed out of me.”
“And that was the difference?”
‘Yes. What I wrote that day was different from anything I’d ever written. It spoke to how I felt at that moment. Life had beaten me down. Fool, Anticipation, was about me. I realized I had been the fool. Given all I had going against me, I was foolish to think my life would turn out any better than it did.”
“That’s a very cynical thought, Miss Doyle.”
“Maybe. But one has all these grand dreams when you are young and don’t understand how life has a way of twisting and contorting circumstances in ways none of us can anticipate. So what is an easily opened door for you today becomes one hopelessly barricaded by chance tomorrow.”
“Ah yes, Fate. Le sort.”
“Yes. It can be cruel, no?”
“Oui, Madame. C’est vrai.”
“But I learned that if you really want to get anywhere in this world, you damn well better accept your situation and move on, even in a mental hospital. Especially in a mental hospital.”
“So, you sent the poem out?”
“No. After I finished it, I put it aside for a long time, never expecting it to go anywhere.”
“Of course, that’s not what happened.”
‘No. There you go, mon cher. Like so many other things in my life, little Edna Rose was dead wrong. Because of the power of that poem, I got published, and eventually became famous, got recognized in bookstores in Paris, bought a mansion, and became rich. It was everything I ever dreamed.”
“And this is what turned your life turned around?”
I laughed.
“No. Money and fame don’t do that.”
“Then, what did?”
“It was finding love.”
“Really? Amor?’
“Prosperity is never as great as people make it out to be, but love is something in which you can trust. And foolishly, I nearly let it pass me by.”
“Why?”
“When you are young, you don’t have any courage to act on your beliefs. You walk past things that could be significant to your life, hoping some random spirit might later lure you back, a dicey proposition, at best.”
“It seems all of this has given you a lot of wisdom, Miss Doyle.”
That made me laugh.
“Well, I wasn’t born with it, honey. What I was born with was determination.”
“I see.”
“No one, but no one, was going to keep me from getting what I wanted. I got knocked down plenty of times but never knocked out. I had grit, and like many other women at the time, I needed every bit of it to survive.”
“Well, it sounds like an incredible story. I’d love to hear it.”
I had more perspective on my life than years earlier, which was enough to convince me. I paused, and a strange thought occurred to me. Was this the reason I had come to Paris in the first place? I smiled and looked at my empty flute.
“I’m afraid we’ll need another bottle of champagne.”
“I’m ready when you are, Miss Doyle.”
“Okay, mon cher. It was September of 1945, on the day I met my girlfriend, Elle Rochefort…”
The genre is historical fiction, revealing the backstory of World War II patriotism, the East Village as a sanctuary for bohemian talent, the intellectual and literary elite, and the byproducts of the Vietnam War. The book reads like an autobiography not only because of the first-person point of view but also the turbulence of Rose Doyle's life, an unfortunate reality for many women.
People often think youth is a time of impulsive behavior and gratuitous gratification, but not for me. No, my early years were more a time for careful calculation and missteps, overshadowed by the fear of the unknown, the most significant hurdle of them all.
Rose is an aspiring poet whose journey is filled with poor choices borne out of dark familial secrets. The multitude of underlying themes includes sexual innocence, abuse (or torture as Rose explains), denial and freedom; women's servitude and compliance; mental illness and treatment; addiction and recovery; and twisted, imperfect love and love in its finest form.
Love lived too close to pain...There comes a time you have to feel through the fear.
This may sound like a dizzying kaleidoscope of storylines, but the outstanding character development and writing style make it work as Rose reaches one epiphany after another.
If you are lucky, you get a watershed moment in life when you must confront the truth, but the truth is in another room. You crack the door open and look in. If it looks too dark and scary, you close that door forever, but you change if you step in and face it. Once you change, you never return.
The author demonstrates a unique formula for giving the reader a rundown of scenes, sweeping you up inside the character's emotional upheaval.
Big, springy seats. Forms, letters, and questionnaires. The hospital smell. Quiet chatter outside. Another woman waits. Carla. Big bouffant hairdo. Jewelry. She wasn't a bit nervous.
I also enjoyed the humor, a bit of comic relief sitting alongside a deeply heart-wrenching tale.
"Don't make me say it."
"It's OKay. Say it."
"Oh, geeze. A lesbian, You are a lesbian?"
"Ding! Give that man first prize."
"When did that happen?"
"Today, we have the stuffed teddy bears, the kewpie doll, or the chance to ask another question."
"Stop making fun of this. How long has this been going on?"
"The man chooses number three."
I highly recommend this book to fans of women's fiction, poetry, New York, people who came of age in the 40s and 50s, and anyone else interested in an intriguing, insightful and well-written story.