A short little southern lady wrote a novel for her own amusement, and with solid support from her husband, she kept her literary efforts a secret from all her friends. She would hide the voluminous pages under towels, disguising them as a divan, or hide pages in her closets or under her bed. She wrote in a haphazard fashion, writing the last chapter first, and skipping around from chapter to chapter.
In a nutshell, her novel was about a young woman who spend nearly 400 pages chasing after a man that she realizes in the end that she never really loved and (possibly) loses the man that she really does.Her heroine also, in less than 10 years:
Marries three men; one dies from the measles, sends another one to his death and the third rapes her in a fit of jealous rage.
Has three children (one dies in a horseback riding accident) and one miscarriage.
Kills a man in self defense.
Helps with an amputation in a makeshift hospital.
Narrowly escapes the destruction of her adopted hometown.
Loses then regains her family's fortune.
Loses almost all of her family by the novels end.
And she still retains an optimistic view on life.
Oh yeah, all of this is played out on the backdrop of slavery, The Civil War, the fall of the South, Reconstruction, the rise of the KKK and a certain dress made from the living room curtains. (You thought Russian novels were convoluted.)
It was a great surprise to Ms. Mitchell that on June 30, 1936 when her voluminous novel was published. Even more shocking, on May 3, 1937, Margaret Mitchell won the Pulitzer Prize for Gone With the Wind.
... After all, tomorrow is another day!
No comments:
Post a Comment