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A review by citizen_noir
The Moonflower Vine by Jetta Carleton
4.0
A year or two ago I read the memoir AVID READER: A LIFE, by Robert Gottlieb, a celebrated editor and publisher who worked with such famed literary lions as Joseph Heller, Toni Morrison, John le Carre, Doris Lessing, Robert Caro, Lauren Bacall, Bill Clinton, and Katharine Graham. I remember in the book coming across mention of THE MOONFLOWER VINE, by Jetta Carleton, a book and author that I had never heard of before. In a 1984 reissue of THE MOONFLOWER VINE, Gottlieb said the following:
With an endorsement like that, I made a point of finding a copy of THE MOONFLOWER VINE, and read it while on vacation. The book is very good, but I admit having expectations that it would be great, partly based on Gottlieb's rave review. It would be hard for any book to meet those lofty expectations.
The book starts with a chapter called The Family, narrated by the youngest daughter, Mary Jo. We meet Matthew Soames and his wife, Callie, who spend summers on a rustic farm in Missouri. We also meet their daughters: Jessica, Leonie, and Mary Jo, and learn that a fourth daughter, Mathy, passed away some time ago. They seem like a perfect mid-20th century midwestern family, something straight out of American Gothic. I enjoyed the descriptions in this first chapter, but I kept thinking that the book was going to bore me to tears if the story was about these simple, sentimental characters.
Thankfully, I kept going. The subsequent chapters are all in the third person, told from the point of view of the various characters: Jessica, Matthew, Mathy, Leonie, and finally, Callie. We learn that these apparently simple people are much more complex than the first chapter indicates, with dreams and desires - fulfilled and unfulfilled - that are at times, shocking. The final twist in Callie's story caught me completely by surprise.
THE MOONFLOWER VINE is the only novel by its author, Jetta Carleton. Jane Smiley, in the introduction, makes an interesting comparison between Carleton and two other authors who wrote a single, celebrated novel: Harper Lee and Ralph Ellison. Carleton, like the youngest daughter in the novel, Mary Jo, was a copywriter in New York, who moved west and started a small publishing house with her husband.
After I finished the book, I paged back to the first chapter, The Family, and browsed it again, noticing all the places where hints of the things to come were indicated in the text. This does feel like an old book - a bit anachronistic, not just for today, but also for the time in which it was published - 1962 - as the women's rights movement was hitting its stride. Still, I think many readers will enjoy THE MOONFLOWER VINE.
"Of the hundreds upon hundreds of novels I've edited, this is literally the only one I've reread several times since its publication. And every time I've read it, I've been moved by it again - by the people, by their lives; by the truth and clarity and generosity in the writing and feeling."
With an endorsement like that, I made a point of finding a copy of THE MOONFLOWER VINE, and read it while on vacation. The book is very good, but I admit having expectations that it would be great, partly based on Gottlieb's rave review. It would be hard for any book to meet those lofty expectations.
The book starts with a chapter called The Family, narrated by the youngest daughter, Mary Jo. We meet Matthew Soames and his wife, Callie, who spend summers on a rustic farm in Missouri. We also meet their daughters: Jessica, Leonie, and Mary Jo, and learn that a fourth daughter, Mathy, passed away some time ago. They seem like a perfect mid-20th century midwestern family, something straight out of American Gothic. I enjoyed the descriptions in this first chapter, but I kept thinking that the book was going to bore me to tears if the story was about these simple, sentimental characters.
Thankfully, I kept going. The subsequent chapters are all in the third person, told from the point of view of the various characters: Jessica, Matthew, Mathy, Leonie, and finally, Callie. We learn that these apparently simple people are much more complex than the first chapter indicates, with dreams and desires - fulfilled and unfulfilled - that are at times, shocking. The final twist in Callie's story caught me completely by surprise.
THE MOONFLOWER VINE is the only novel by its author, Jetta Carleton. Jane Smiley, in the introduction, makes an interesting comparison between Carleton and two other authors who wrote a single, celebrated novel: Harper Lee and Ralph Ellison. Carleton, like the youngest daughter in the novel, Mary Jo, was a copywriter in New York, who moved west and started a small publishing house with her husband.
After I finished the book, I paged back to the first chapter, The Family, and browsed it again, noticing all the places where hints of the things to come were indicated in the text. This does feel like an old book - a bit anachronistic, not just for today, but also for the time in which it was published - 1962 - as the women's rights movement was hitting its stride. Still, I think many readers will enjoy THE MOONFLOWER VINE.