Ask Tara Conklin and Christina Baker Kline! discussion
Featured Chat - 2014
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The orphan train
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Not a question but look what I just found...a publisher's contest based on The Orphan Train...http://abt.cm/1gWMTV2
Sounds amazing. Good luck to all who decide to enter.
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Hi Sandy - I happened on the story of the orphan trains at a very lucky time. When I started the book there were about 150 living train riders; today there are fewer than 20. In a few years, none will be left. The remaining riders are all between about 95 and 105. Remember, Maisie was in her 80s - I read many true stories about train riders (and descendants) who located family members only to find out that they had died. It was a real-life detail that I found poignant and realistic.
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Hi Denise - this is the #1 question that book clubs ask me, and I actually wrote a response to this on my website! Here it is: There are a number of reasons Vivian gave up her daughter -- and truthfully, if I could, I would do a better job of articulating them in the novel. First, Vivian was despondent over Dutchy's death; she was grieving, vulnerable, and alone. Though Mrs. Nielsen has been kind, and loving in her way, she was not a nurturing presence. Vivian didn't trust that she had the capacity to take care of a child on her own, without the ballast of a loving husband. Second, as Vivian says she didn't want, "ever again, to experience the loss of someone I love beyond reason." Every person who had mattered deeply in her life had been taken away: her grandmother, her parents, her sister, Dutchy. Vivian was afraid that if she allowed herself to love this baby she would be setting herself up for another profound loss. And finally -- a number of train riders told me that they were afraid of becoming parents because they had no model for how to be good ones. They had been abused, abandoned, and put to work. Like children of alcoholics who fear becoming alcoholics themselves, and children of abuse who worry that they will become perpetrators, Vivian was terrified that not having grown up in a stable, nurturing environment, she wouldn't know how to create one herself.
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Hi Denise - I was privileged to talk to seven living train riders over the course of my research, and to read hundreds of nonfiction stories (oral histories, memoirs, and biographies). I feel so lucky to have stumbled on this story at a time when I COULD talk to them. One train rider in particular, 94-year-old Pat Thiessen, greatly influenced me. She talked about her experience with such vivid intensity. Even more than eight decades after she rode on a train, she could summon, and articulate, those feelings of loss and loneliness.
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http://abt.cm/1gWMTV2
Sounds amazing. Good luck to all who decide to enter."
Yes, you should enter! It's going to be a great adventure for six people -- and I look forward to having dinner with the group in NYC!
Wow! I would love to chat with one of these individuals. The knowledge is so important. Thanks for answering my question.Dena
Christina wrote: "Magpie67 wrote: "Brilliant writing... The emotions you gave the characters, the storyline, the time table of history was stunning. I'm in two book clubs in Iowa and we read The Orphan Train for th..."Joyce H wrote: "I looooooved the story line and characters. However, I thought the ending was kind of abrupt. Was there a reason you chose not to go into detail about masie (Vivian's sister)? Did you intend to lea..."
I agree that the ending of Orphan Train was wrapped up rather too conveniently and quickly. I guess that is the sign of a good book that I didn't want it to end. I closed the book wanting to know more about the subject matter and the characters, especially Vivian's later life.
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I wanted to write an ending that would bloom in the reader's mind. Like the Wizard of Oz (one of Vivian's favorite movies), all of the important characters are present. If you read the last 20 pages again, I think you'll see that each character is set on a path; all of their futures are visible. We might not know exactly what will happen to each one, but it's pretty clear that Molly is headed toward college, Vivian and her daughter are headed toward reconciliation, and Vivian's granddaughter is going to get to hear an incredible family story - and have a relationship with her grandmother. The front porch felt like the right place to end the novel.
I loved the ending and yet..... I wanted to be on the porch. You did a great job, because we all wish the story continued in our lives, that we were there. Your characters felt so real...... ;o)Take a bow my lady!!!!
I will take this book in my memory wherever I go and tell everyone to read it.
Hi, This is for Christina. I recently finished reading Orphan Train and thoroughly enjoyed it. It is our town's "One Book/One Community" selection this year. I'll be the facilitator for the book discussion in a couple of weeks. Our local museum is also presenting programs on the trains and the children who rode them. One of the trains stopped in this town in the late 1800s and about 26 children were taken in by families in this county. In a recent presentation at the museum, the fact that some of the children were chosen mainly for "indentured servitude" was mentioned. Through your research, can you give an assessment of how prevalent this mindset was? Also, Vivian's 2nd family was so poor & abusive. I realize this was a time prior to child welfare agencies. However, was it your opinion, through your research, that the societies that placed the children could be lax in their placement policies? Were the individuals simply concerned with placing them "somewhere?" Thanks for any additional input on this subject. It may come up in our discussion. It's a pleasure to be able to chat with you.
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I think I was drawn to the orphan train story in part because two of my own grandparents were orphans who spoke little about their early lives. As a novelist I’ve always been fascinated with how people tell the stories of their lives and what those stories reveal – intentionally or not – about who they are. My own background is partly Irish, and so I decided that I wanted to write about an Irish girl who has kept silent about the circumstances that led her to the orphan train. I wanted to write about how traumatic events beyond our control can shape and define our lives. “People who cross the threshold between the known world and that place where the impossible does happen discover the problem of how to convey that experience,” Kathryn Harrison writes. Over the course of this novel my central character, Vivian, moves from shame about her past to acceptance, eventually coming to terms with what she’s been through. In the process she learns about the regenerative power of claiming – and telling – her own life story.
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I stumbled on the story of the orphan trains about a decade ago, visiting my mother-in-law in North Dakota. Her father, whom I never met, was featured in an article about train riders who ended up in Jamestown, ND. I was stunned to learn that more than 200,000 abandoned, neglected, or orphaned children had been sent from the East Coast to the Midwest on trains between 1954 and 1929. The idea of writing about this little-known part of American history percolated in my brain for years, as these things do. Then, about three years ago, I found the key I needed to unlock the narrative: an appealingly irascible 17-year-old with nothing to lose who pries the story out of a 91-year-old with a hidden past as a train rider. In the course of my research I read more than 300 first-person accounts and dozens of books, attended train-rider reunions and talked with seven train riders (all between the ages of 90 and 100), and conducted research in Ireland, Minnesota, Maine and the Lower East Side. The greatest challenge was finding a way to weave together the first-person historical story and the third-person-limited present-day story. I knew I wanted the first-person story to end abruptly at a certain point and get swallowed up by the larger narrative. Making it all fit together in a way that linked the story arcs of the two main characters was complicated and thrilling.
Yes, it would seem Christina that your story suggested Vivian needed to be re-placed, but that the gentlemen wasn't overly concerned where he placed her as long as she had a place to stay. And then Dutchy's placement was as an indentured servant. Was there more than one agency working this orphan train mission?My own grandfather was of 14 children born to his family because they lived on a farm.... They worked the farm as soon as they were old enough. It was the way of life back then......
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Merrilee, I'm not sure what you mean by "conveniently" - it doesn't feel that way to me - but I understand that you felt it ended too soon ...!
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Lovely to hear - thank you!
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It's always hard to decide where to end a story. In Orphan Train I felt that I had taken them all as far as I could; I had created the connections that would allow them to move forward and thrive. I know that sounds silly, but it's true!
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Sadly, yes, there were many stories similar to Vivian's (Dorothy's) experience with the Grotes: going into a home that has no running water, is in the middle of the woods, with neglectful parents, etc. In fact, I came across an article I use in my slideshow (from the Washington Post in 1905) which is about immigrants on the plains of North Dakota taking train riders into sod huts and mistreating them terribly. It says, "children sent out from Eastern cities are doomed to drudgery which will amount to serfdom." At the same time, some children had very happy experiences. The bottom line is this: there was no screening process for people who took in the children.
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There were two main agencies, the Children's Aid Society and the Foundling Hospital, both in NYC. Neither screened the people who took in children.
Has there been any genetic testing to help orphan train families connect with their biological relatives?
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There are over two million descendants of train riders, and I know that they're eager to get as much information as they can. I haven't heard about genetic testing specifically, but I would not be surprised.
Just read this thread, this is really fascinating.Kudos to you for doing all of this extensive research and telling the story on behalf of all of those children.
Christina wrote: "Denise wrote: "Hi, i really enjoyed reading this book. It was really an early attempt at child welfare. My question though, is why did you decide that Vivian would not keep her baby? I felt that ..."After reading your reply I can see why you allowed Vivian to make the decision to give up her child. I enjoyed your book and am looking forward to reading another by you. Thank you for the pleasure of the Orphan Train!
I also felt shocked (and saddened) when Vivian gave up her baby so it is interesting to read your reasons for writing it that way. It helps (me)to understand that part of the book better.
I cried tears of anguish during the book and I had very happy tears at the end. In fact, I wanted to know more.... ;o)
I have been telling everyone to read The Orphan Train wherever I go and I chatted about it in one of my weekly articles I wrote at the newspaper I work at. Our papers cover the Avoca and Oakland areas.
I guess my question is.... how long of time did you spend with the elderly train orphans to get some accurate details for the book and was it hard to leave them? I'm sure they had such fascinating tales to tell. ;o)
Thank you for writing the book, I look forward to reading other titles you have written.