When Love Speaks by Amelia Elizabeth Walden, for the 1961 Club and Reading the Theatre Month

Walden (1909-2002) was a pioneering young adult author I read frequently as a teen and pre-teen, so in 2010 I was pleased to learn about the Assembly on Literature for Adolescents’ (“ALAN”) Amelia Elizabeth Walden Award.* With some exceptions, her books fell into three categories: girls playing sports, girls/young women involved in theater, or young women drawn into espionage. In the 1940s and 50s when her books were first published, there were very few people writing about girls in sports and there weren’t as many opportunities for girls to play. I was never a good athlete but it was still fun to read about these sporty girls who experienced challenges with teammates, coaches, school, families, and friends. In the 70s, she began writing about young women co-opted into espionage, and these must have been popular because several were published in paperback by Scholastic Book Services.

I also enjoyed her books set in the theater like When Love Speaks, which is the first in a trilogy about an aspiring actress, Miranda Welch. She is a senior at what is now Carnegie Mellon, recovering from the recent death of her father when she arrives at the American Shakespeare Theatre’s summer academy, a week late. He was a Shakespearean scholar at Yale, so renowned that established actors would consult him. On the side, he directed productions at a local boys’ school and Miranda often took the female parts:

Thus her love of Shakespeare’s characters had become so entwined with her devotion to her father that she could hardly distinguish where one began and the other left off. But for all her experience she had never stood in a casting lineup before a professional director.

Her mother was right that taking advantage of the summer program, as Professor Welch had hoped, would distract Miranda from her grief. She is challenged by her teachers, she makes friends, she understudies Maria in Twelfth Night. Miranda also learns the hard way about theater rivalries and jealousy when one of her peers uses Miranda to improve her performance, then withholds a message so she can take Miranda's part when the understudy is summoned.

Soon she also has two romantic prospects, Webb Leonard, the best looking and most talented male student, who has been through difficult times of his own, and Frank Cummings, one of the directors. Both are more perceptive about Miranda than she is about herself but I find Frank very annoying and condescending, like many of Walden’s male characters. Of course it was a different era in 1961 with regard for conflicts of interest but her mother had warned her about hasty friendships so Miranda demurs when Frank asks her to dinner:

“Is it all right?” she asked. “I mean for a pro to ask an academy student for – for dinner?”

His expression grew mock serious. “Equity hasn’t made any rules about people liking each other.”

She can’t think of a graceful way to decline but when he tells her: “Wear something fluffy and feminine. I like girls that way,” she should have been a lot more indignant. She gasps “at the unusual demand” but I wish she had hung up and stuck with Webb.

Despite her talent, Miranda is inexperienced; she benefits from Webb and Frank, who (separately) provide sage career advice when she is frustrated or experiencing difficulty. One of the things I especially appreciated about this book is that things don’t come too easily for Miranda: sneaky Denise backstabs her and is more successful substituting as Anna than Miranda and, when the student show is cast, Denise is cast as Juliet and Miranda is given the part of the garrulous nurse! I was reminded of being overlooked for Juliet in my school’s performance of Romeo and Juliet when blonde Lisa Abels got the part. Still kind of annoyed about that!

I always thought the title of this book was too sappy for what is more of a coming of age story than a YA romance or career novel. I should have realized "When Love Speaks" is derived from Shakespeare (given he is practically a character in this book), specifically a line in Love's Labor's Lost (Act 4, Scene 3): "And when love speaks, the voice of all the gods / Makes heaven drowsy with the harmony." Like Miranda’s father, Walden taught English and Drama and knew Shakespeare well. She loved the theater and spent a lot of time at the American Shakespeare Theatre in Stratford, Connecticut from 1955 – 1982. Many notable actors performed there, including Katharine Hepburn, James Earl Jones, and Christopher Plummer.

Do you remember the Berkley Highland paperback imprint? All or most of these were books targeted to a Young Adult audience when the term was new. They had a plaid stripe on the binding and front cover and featured what we now call Malt Shop authors: authors like Walden, Betty Cavanna, Anne Emery, Margaret Maze Craig, Lenora Mattingly Weber, and Rosamond du Jardin. The first book I remember purchasing was The Real Thing by du Jardin for $.60; presumably my library didn’t own that book in the Tobey Heydon series.  When Love Speaks has a cover price of just $.45 and it is so fragile that the cover fell off when I started reading! This series is very hard to find or I would upgrade.  My copy also has a quote from Virginia Kirkus herself: 

Miss Walden’s insights into the temperaments of creative people and the art of developing a role, and into the works of Shakespeare as well, are added to an enchanting potpourri of summer theatre at its best.

This review is for the #1961Club, hosted by Simon at StuckinaBook and Karen at Kaggsy’s Bookish Ramblings, in which bloggers are invited to read and review books that were published in a chosen year. By the way, in case you are wondering, I use the British spelling of theatre when others use it but otherwise stick with theater (I have matured since the days when I tormented my teachers with spellings they told me were wrong, then demurely brought in a book from the UK to show them).  This also qualifies for Lory's Reading the Theatre Month, although she may not be hosting it this year.

Title: When Love Speaks
Author: Amelia Elizabeth Walden
Publication: Berkley Highland, paperback, originally published in 1961
Genre: YA
Source: Personal copy

* I’ve read and enjoyed several of the winners: Fire by Kristen Cashore, The Fault in Our Stars by John Green (AEW would have liked the Shakespeare-inspired title), Eleanor & Park by Rainbow Rowell, and The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas.