The Life She Wished to Live

I went into this biography only somewhat familiar with Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings--mostly from the movie version of The Yearling and the movie Cross Creek based on her life. As I read, my interest was held and then I was riveted. By the end, I was moved and a fan.

Rawlings was one of the 1930s writers whose career was benefited by Max Perkins of Scribner, the legendary editor who worked with F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ernest Hemingway, and Thomas Wolfe. I had read the biography Max Perkins by A. Scott Berg--forty-plus years ago!--but did not recall Rawlings. 

I spent my teen years reading 20th c writers, including those Perkins mentored, but I don't remember finding women writers listed on the 'greats.' Where was Rawlings? Likely, relegated to the children's section, represented by The Yearling.

Rawlings's mother had hoped for more from life. She determined her daughter would achieve what she had not. When no musical ability was displayed, but Marjorie won a prize for a story, her mother supported and pushed her into writing.

After college, Rawlings became a hack writer and journalist until she felt ready to assume her life's real work as a writer. 

She and her husband, also a writer, purchased a Florida orange grove in a backwater community, setting up in a ramshackle house without electricity or plumbing. 

Running a business took much of their energy and time and money, but the Cracker and African American neighbors also gave her material for her work. 

Rawlings research brought her to live with neighbors to experience their lives, and she went on crocodile and snake hunts. 

Rawling's life held many disappointments and challenges. Her first marriage failed, her husband jealous of her success. She struggled with alcohol use and continual health concerns. Her personal relationships were tested, including an extended lawsuit. She suffered from doubt. She also achieved the Pulitzer Prize and a second marriage with a supporting and loving husband.

I had moments of discomfort with Rawling's language of white supremacy, referencing her African American friends and servants by what we today would consider derogatory terms, but which represented typical white mores at that time. 

McCutchan takes readers on a journey into Rawling's transformation from accepting her inherited values to becoming involved with Zora Neale Hurston and raising her voice for equal rights.

Rawlings also became involved with environmental groups. 

A study in contrasts, Rawlings could tap into her society background, was friends with writers and publisher's daughters,  or be bawdy and rowdy, toting a gun on a hunt. She even went into the scrub wearing a silk nightgown to rescue an animal. I loved her esteem for Thomas Wolfe and her heartbreak over his early loss before he could reach his artistic maturity. Like so many writers who came out of the 1920s, she struggled with alcohol dependency.

This is terrific biography.  

I received a free egalley from the publisher through NetGalley. My review is fair and unbiased.

Marjorie Kinnan Rowlings is the author of the Pulitzer Prize winning The Yearling.  That book and her others are mostly based in the northern Florida scrub and swamps in which she made her home.  Her life and work was centered around her adopted home and much of this book discusses her time there.  She was an entertaining correspondent and this biography relies heavily on her letters to family, friends, other authors and especially her editor, the renowned, Max Perkins of Scribner.  This is a comprehensive biography that does a good job of grappling with the more unsavory parts of her personality, fueled by a reliance on alcohol, as well as her evolving yet still problematic, depictions of her Black neighbors and employees.    It's been a long time since I have read her seminal novel, but I still really enjoyed this extensive glimpse of her life.  I received a digital ARC of this book through NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.