{"id":36413,"date":"2020-05-04T12:03:49","date_gmt":"2020-05-04T16:03:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/blog\/?p=36413"},"modified":"2020-05-04T12:03:49","modified_gmt":"2020-05-04T16:03:49","slug":"review-of-listening-for-madeleine-by-leonard-s-marcus","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/blog\/?p=36413","title":{"rendered":"Review of Listening for Madeleine, by Leonard S. Marcus"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Listening for Madeleine<\/p>\n

A Portrait of Madeleine L\u2019Engle in Many Voices<\/em><\/p>\n

by Leonard S. Marcus<\/p>\n

Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2012. 367 pages.
\nStarred Review
\nReview written July 5, 2019, from my own copy, purchased via Amazon.com<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve long been a fan of Madeleine L\u2019Engle\u2019s work, both fiction and nonfiction, both for children and adults. This book is an exploration of her life, composed of interviews with 51 people who knew her. Some only met her once or twice, but others knew her from childhood. <\/p>\n

Here\u2019s an overview from the Introduction, which also presented an outline of Madeleine L\u2019Engle\u2019s life story:<\/p>\n

In pursuit of a fully rounded portrait of Madeleine L\u2019Engle from living memory, it seemed essential to hear not only from as many as possible of the people who knew her most intimately but also from some whose more fleeting encounters were representative of those of the thousands of students, teachers, librarians, aspiring writers, neighbors, and others who crossed her path in the course of a richly complex life enacted largely in public view.<\/p>\n

The portrait that emerges is \u2013 and was bound to be \u2013 impressionistic in nature. The principal reason for this is that L\u2019Engle casually departmentalized her vast and densely populated universe. People important to her in one sphere of her life typically did not meet those important to her in the others. The inveterate fan and sometime practitioner of the mystery genre knew very well how to scatter the clues to her own story, an overwhelmingly admirable tale that at times, however, bore scant resemblance to the placid domestic idyll of A Circle of Quiet<\/a><\/em> and its sequels, as a controversial profile of L\u2019Engle published in The New Yorker<\/em>, in April 2004, made clear. Some of the most deep-seated family conflicts also proved to be among the longest lived. Regrettably, L\u2019Engle\u2019s adopted daughter, Maria, was among the few people approached about an interview for this book who declined.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Most of the interviews are only a few pages. They\u2019re divided into sections by the way the interviewee encountered Madeleine: Madeleine in the Making, Writer, Matriarch, Mentor, Friend, and Icon.<\/p>\n

The result is indeed impressionistic, but you\u2019re left with what feels like an exquisitely detailed portrait of a remarkable woman.<\/p>\n

I highly recommend this book to all Madeleine L\u2019Engle fans.<\/p>\n

leonardmarcus.com<\/a>
\nfsgbooks.com<\/a><\/p>\n

Buy from Amazon.com<\/a><\/p>\n

Find this review on Sonderbooks<\/a> at: www.sonderbooks.com\/Nonfiction\/listening_for_madeleine.html<\/a><\/p>\n

Disclosure: I am an Amazon Affiliate, and will earn a small percentage if you order a book on Amazon after clicking through from my site.<\/p>\n

Disclaimer: I am a professional librarian, but the views expressed are solely my own, and in no way represent the official views of my employer or of any committee or group of which I am part.<\/p>\n

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