SPRING FIRE is discussed during the interview...the Gold
Medal editor Dick
[forgotten] suggests that if she writes about lesbians, they
be college-age rather than high-schoolers, as I recall. (Not
only her first big hit but her first book of any kind--and
GM's first lesbian novel?) I seem to recall from ME ME ME ME
ME that she was already working at Gold Medal in some
editorial or admin capacity.
Meeker seems to have more faulty information about her
floating around than most not-terribly-obscure living
writers, perhaps in part because of her love for
compartmentalizing her literary life and playing with pseuds.
Just try to get a good accounting of her novels to agree with
almost any other you can find. (I've had sources stating
baldly that she never used "Ann Aldrich" on fiction, and
others, I believe correctly, implying or stating quite the
opposite, for example.)
HIGHSMITH has at least two great laughs in it, and at least
one pretty breathtaking passage (leaving aside the account of
the afternoon Knox Burger
[probably misspelled by me] called to say that he was taking
Meeker's new book and Fawcett was reprinting another and in
one sentence she was $8000 1960s dollars
richer...particularly when contrasted with the smaller
advances Highsmith was getting from her theoretically
prestigious publishers). Together with ME ME ME ME ME, the
two books still leave the nosy reader with a number of
questions...including the quibble that the
"Romance of the 1950s" occurs almost entirely in the early
'60s (but the milieu in which they meet and the social
dynamics which they operate in are still of the '50s).
Looking forward to her jumping in. Wonder if we can entice
her to stick around.
TM, up for both western and sfnal months.
-----Original Message----- From: Michael Robison [mailto:
zspider@gte.net] Subject: Re: RARA-AVIS: Marijane Meaker
(and "Ann Bannon") will be on NPR's FRESH AIR today.
Thanks for the link to the Meaker interview, Todd. I just
finished her first big hit, SPRING FIRE. Did she say anything
in the interview about that book? I've heard that the lesbian
subject matter was requested by the publishers. I'd like to
hear how much influence they had over what she wrote.
I've started her HIGHSMITH book. It's good. I'm normally a
lot more interested in the fiction than the writers' lives,
but the book has got a lot of good stuff in it. Her writing
is as good or better than ever.
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