Ask Susan Wittig Albert about A WILDER ROSE discussion
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Susan
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Nov 02, 2013 12:49PM
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what made you decide this subject was worth all the time in research? Did you feel there would be enough of an audience for it in main stream publishing?
Hi, Susan! Do you think that the popularity of the TV show created a false feeling of the reality of the story itself? In other words, did the watchers of the series believe that they were watching something that really happened? Did that affect the story of Rose and Laura at all?
I love the simplicity of your rules, Susan, and am looking forward to the give and take here in the group. My questions will come later. The subject matter alone will draw me to your book naturally enough and the fact that I know your work clinches the deal.
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What was the biggest surprise you discovered about Rose and Laura through your research?
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Bev, this is a project I've had on my mind for decades. I didn't start out with the idea of writing a novel: I started working on it because I just had to know how those wonderful books were actually written. After I read THE FIRST FOUR YEARS and some of Laura's published farm-magazine essays, I questioned whether she could have produced those eight LH books without significant help. I was driven by personal curiosity and by my love for the books themselves.
Re: size of the mainstream audience. That issue didn't come up for me until I shopped the book as a narrative nonfiction. Several mainstream editors remarked that it was too small a "niche" to make their lists. I took that into account when I decided to publish the book myself.
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Laura, that's a very interesting question. I think the TV show, with its attractive personalities and powerful images and storylines, overtook the books, replacing them in the minds of many readers/viewers. It also created in many viewers a false idealization of American pioneer life. (Bonanza, Gunsmoke, Davy Crockett all did the same thing.)
The TV show didn't affect the stories themselves (they pre-dated the series), but it certainly affected people's perception of the stories. I've met lots of people who believe they have read the books but when they stop to think about it, realize that they've only seen the TV show. And the demand it created produced numerous book spinoffs, such as Roger MacBride's Rocky Ridge Years and Little House: the Caroline Years, which are based on the LH books. Some readers confuse those fiction-based novels with the fact-based stories of the Ingalls' pioneer lives.
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There were lots of surprises along the way, little and big, from the extent of the Wilders' real-life poverty to Rose's amazing productivity as a writer. But one that has stuck with me was the effort Rose and Laura put into covering up Rose's work on the books. I mention that in the novel, and describe it in more detail the Reader's Companion (now available as an inexpensive Kindle book). They really, REALLY didn't want anybody--their agent, their editor, their readers--to know about their collaboration. Which is one reason it's been so hard to get at the truth, I think.
Susan wrote: "Mason wrote: "What was the biggest surprise you discovered about Rose and Laura through your research?"There were lots of surprises along the way, little and big, from the extent of the Wilders' ..."
Susan,
I am wondering from what you say here if their hiding the truth was because Laura did not like the idea of Rose helping her and resisted that help? So she made her unhappiness known to Rose?
Or could it be a bigger issue like it not being very ethical for them to have done that?
Maybe a mixture of the two?
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There were lots of surprises along the way, little and big, from the extent of..."
It's true that Laura didn't want to admit to her need of Rose's help--that's documented in the testy exchange over Rose's rewriting of two magazine articles Laura produced for Country Gentleman in 1925. It's also apparent in Rose's frequent reassurances to her mother that she's only "doing what an editor would do" (when she's really doing what a book doctor does). Laura doesn't want to admit her need for help and Rose doesn't want to damage her mother's pride, sense of self-worth, and self-confidence. But when Laura's first effort at FARMER BOY was rejected, I think Laura began to realize that this was not a project she could manage on her own. And Rose began to realize that she HAD to "fix" (her word) the books, if her mother was going to have any income from them at all. They might not have wanted this partnership, or enjoyed it. But they were stuck with it.
And we always need to keep in mind that the two women didn't originally intend to write a series. Rose sold the first book (LH/BIG WOODS), and the contract came with a somewhat surprising two-book option (which turned into FARMER BOY and LH/PRAIRIE). But even when they finished PRAIRIE, they couldn't know for sure that Laura would get another contract. This was the Depression, and the book business was in serious trouble, like everything else.
And there's the marketing advantage of this sweet farm lady writing her childhood stories at her desk by lamplight...and Rose's reluctance to admit to any of her ghostwriting (she did quite a lot of that in the early 30s)...
As time went on, the ethical issue may have come to both Rose and Laura's mind, but we have no record of any discussion of it. What we do know is that in 1949, Laura told her agent to give Rose 10% of the royalties, for "helping me, at first, in selling my books and for the publicity she gave them." (A truly remarkable understatement.) And that years after Laura's death, Rose was insisting that the books were her mother's and that (shaking my head here) every word in them was true.
Was there anything compulsive about Rose's editing of Laura's work? All the women in our family are voracious readers, and there's been lots of discussions about annoying misspellings (especially in Kindle books), lame writing, etc. Even though only one of us is an editor, none of us like reading something that's poorly written. I sensed from your book that Rose, a professional writer (unlike any in my family) would have been even more frustrated by ineffective writing, and she really didn't want her mother's unskilled words to go public.
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Yvonne, yes (excellent question)! Rose was a compulsive editor. She once received a letter from a young woman describing her visit to the Ingalls' cabin near Lake Pepin. She edited it--thoroughly!--and returned it to the writer, with the suggestion that she submit it to Horn Book. You can read the letter, with Rose's edits, in the Spring/Summer 1988 edition of the newsletter, LIW LORE.
Rose had very strong ideas about what made for good dialogue, narration, and story structure, and she used her rewrite pencil freely: a skill she learned in the editorial room at the San Francisco Bulletin during her 3 years there (1915-1918) and practiced the rest of her life.
Susan wrote: "Yvonne wrote: "Was there anything compulsive about Rose's editing of Laura's work? All the women in our family are voracious readers, and there's been lots of discussions about annoying misspelling..."I had to laugh at your response, as I have the same problem - editing everything I read! Although I have never sent a letter back with corrections!
Susan wrote: "Readerwoman Laura wrote: "Hi, Susan! Do you think that the popularity of the TV show created a false feeling of the reality of the story itself? In other words, did the watchers of the series belie..."I really was bothered by Roger MacBride's apparent disregard for the legacy of Rose and Laura's works... he seemed more interested in making money than in being true to the stories of these remarkable women...
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Laura, I personally feel that Laura would not have wanted her name associated with the TV series. Rose wanted to see LET THE HURRICANE ROAR (her 1933 serial/novel) turned into a film, so she might not have been so distressed by the TV show based on that work. Neither of them foresaw the bonanza realized by their work.
I read somewhere that Rose and her not-much-older aunt Grace were close as youngsters, and that Rose sent money to Grace late in life. What happened to their relationship in between? Did they stay in touch? Were they close?
On a lighter note, I've always been surprised by pictures of Rose. To my eyes, she didn't look like either of her parents, her Ingalls aunts, or Almanzo's sister Eliza Jane. You've probably seen more pictures of the extended families than I have...so who do you think Rose looks like?
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What happened to their relationship in between? Did they s..."
Grace was 9 years older than Rose, and the two were together, off and on, until the Wilders moved to Missouri when Rose was 7 (Grace would have been 16).
I don't know of any correspondence between them until February, 1932, when Rose mentions in her diary that Laura had received a letter from Grace, asking for financial help. The two apparently discussed it, but there's no indication in the diary that Rose sent money. Grace died in 1941. No, I don't think they were close.
You're right, Katherine: Rose doesn't seem to have much of a family resemblance. But I like to think that she inherited her itchy foot from her grandfather, Charles Ingalls. She remembers feeling an urgent wanderlust as a small child, and she was 52 when she settled in her first permanent "little house."
A friend and poet called Rowena Love once wrote a letter to a magazine, which published it, claiming that Laura must have been of exceptional intelligence; as in a time when girls were not greatly expected to be intelligent, she won a spelling contest against the whole town - the book actually says only her father beat her - and qualified as a teacher at a young age. Then there were all the books! Rose certainly comes across as extremely bright and with an enquiring mind, so would you say it was genuinely true of Laura?
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