mary maclane: the ‘wild woman of butte’
March 18, 2013 § 1 Comment
this week, melville house is publishing “I Await the Devil’s Coming” by Mary MacLane. MacLane’s memoir was first published back in 1902, and became a sensational hit. MacLane, herself, was nineteen years old, born and raised in butte, montana and, if this excerpt (via book bench) is any evidence, damned witty too:
The more I see of conventionality, it seems, the more I am odd.
Though I am young and feminine—very feminine—yet I am not that quaint conceit, a girl: the sort of person that Laura E. Richards writes about, and Nora Perry, and Louisa M. Alcott,—girls with bright eyes, and with charming faces (they always have charming faces), standing with reluctant feet where the brook and river meet,—and all that sort of thing.
I missed all that.
. . . .
And then, usually, if one is not a girl one is a heroine—of the kind you read about. But I am not a heroine, either. A heroine is beautiful—eyes like the sea shoot opaque glances from under drooping lids—walks with undulating movements, her bright smile haunts one still, falls methodically in love with a man—always with a man, eats things (they are always called “viands”) with a delicate appetite, and on special occasions her voice is full of tears. I do none of these things. I am not beautiful. I do not walk with undulating movements—indeed, I have never seen any one walk so, except, perhaps, a cow that has been overfed. My bright smile haunts no one. I shoot no opaque glances from my eyes, which are not like the sea by any means. I have never eaten any viands, and my appetite for what I do eat is most excellent. And my voice has never yet, to my knowledge, been full of tears.
No, I am not a heroine.
There never seem to be any plain heroines, except Jane Eyre, and she was very unsatisfactory. She should have entered into marriage with her beloved Rochester in the first place. I should have, let there be a dozen mad wives upstairs. But I suppose the author thought she must give her heroine some desirable thing—high moral principles, since she was not beautiful. Some people say that beauty is a curse. It may be true, but I’m sure I should not have at all minded being cursed a little. And I know several persons who might well say the same. But, anyway, I wish some one would write a book about a plain, bad heroine so that I might feel in real sympathy with her.
_________
sadly, this is the first i‘d ever heard of MacLane. talk about a serious gap in my education, people! wikipedia tells me that MacLane not only helped usher in the confessional style of autobiographical writing (a favorite genere of mine – David Sedaris, i‘m looking at you), but was also an openly bi-sexual feminist. say what?! well, whatever. say no more. it’s already on my amazon wishlist.
Related articles
- Why I Am a Thief (newyorker.com)
little bookish things 
She was indeed bisexual – lesbian-tending, actually – and wrote about it in 1901, at the age of nineteen, and had it published and nationally discussed, sometimes in tones of almost respect. (The distinguished American writer Wallace Rice called her love for her lit. teacher Frances Corbin “a real passion” and implied it was not unhealthy. MM’s publisher for that first book was a distinguished house who dealt with the best writers of the day. (A few years earlier they’d discovered Chopin’s “The Awakening” – same editor.) We’ve been researching MM for twenty-five years, and she’s still yielding new literary pleasures – an undiscovered gem who facets are starting to come visible again.