Six Degrees of Separation – from The Anniversary to A Killing of Innocents

It’s time for #6degrees, inspired by Kate at Books Are My Favourite and Best. We all start at the same place as other readers, add six books, and see where you end up. This month’s starting point is The Anniversary by Stephanie Bishop (2023), a mystery in which the protagonist’s husband falls overboard while they are on a cruise celebrating their wedding anniversary (hello, I can sense an unreliable narrator from a distance).

Betsy and Tacy Go Downtown, Chapters 8 and 9

Chapter 8, Mrs. Poppy

Betsy is thoroughly enjoying her adventure at the Melborn Hotel, as is her rescuer, Mrs. Poppy, who telephones Mr. Ray for permission so Betsy can stay.  “There’s time for a real party,” she tells Betsy and asks if she would like to take the elevator or the stairs.  Betsy hesitates although not for my usual reason of a reproachful faux-Fitbit.   She has never ridden in an elevator but the grand staircase of the Melborn Hotel is very impressive!  “The stairs,” she said.  “And the elevator coming down.”  They pass a statue of the Winged Victory as they ascend.  Headless.  Mrs. Poppy explains that it is Greek.   Betsy takes it in stride, feeling well prepared by her Greek mythology reading earlier in the day.

 

At the top of the stairs is the hotel’s two-story dining room, overlooking the river.  This is where Deep Valley’s elegant dances with orchestras take place (foreshadowing!).  Mrs. Poppy asks a maid for hot chocolate but they continue to her private apartment which has parlor, den, bedroom and bathroom but no kitchen or dining room as the Poppys dine in the hotel dining room or have food delivered.    Betsy notices a small rocking chair with a doll in it.  When she asks if the doll belonged to Mrs. Poppy as a child, Mrs. Poppy tells Betsy it belonged to her daughter who died.  Betsy feels sad but doesn’t know how to respond.  Mrs. Poppy explains that is why she enjoys other people’s children and asks Betsy about Tacy and Tib.  Betsy guesses from what Mrs. Poppy says that she is lonesome.  Mrs. Poppy admits it is hard to make friends, living in a hotel.   She gave up her career in musical comedy to marry Mr. Poppy.

Betsy-Tacy Go Downtown, Chapters 3 - 5

Chapter 3 and 4     Winona’s Tickets, More About Winona's Tickets

When Betsy, Tacy and Tib finish bragging about Tib’s adventure, they begin to plot to persuade Winona to invite them to the show.  They consider a bribe but then Tacy has a better idea – they should hypnotize her!

“Take us to Uncle Tom’s Cabin. Take us.  Take us.  Take us,” they intone silently from all directions during the school day.  Winona is slightly unnerved by their glassy stares and their teacher.   The trio’s teacher scolds them for not facing front and doesn’t understand why Tib won’t describe her exciting horseless carriage experience but Tib realized that might hurt their cause with Winona.  In fact, Winona says loudly that she won’t take people who stare at her! The girls drop that plan but hypnosis continues to appeal to certain Betsy-Tacy fans in the Pacific Northwest when needed.

 

Betsy is yearning for Uncle Tom’s Cabin but nobly she does not ask her father to get her a ticket because she knows that wouldn’t help Tacy.   Her longing was a little like what she felt when she saw rows and rows of books in other people’s bookcases (she had read all the books in the bookcase at home).  Kindred meet spirit!  Not that I will ever finish all the books at my home!

Betsy and Tacy Go Downtown, Chapters 1 and 2

Betsy and Tacy Go Downtown by Maud Hart Lovelace is the fourth Betsy-Tacy book, set in 1904-05 and published in 1943.  The girls are now 12 years old and in the seventh grade. 

It is time for Betsy, Tacy and Tib’s world to be expanded in another direction.  The trio is now 12.  When Downtown opens, Betsy is in her beloved maple tree from which she can see the town of Deep Valley, Minnesota.   She sees four places that MHL knows will be important to her (and to us!), “the Opera House, the Melborn Hotel, the skeleton of the new Carnegie Library, and the high school that her sister Julia and Tacy’s sister Katie attended.”  She is aware of a world unexplored.  

 

Betsy has one of the notebooks from her father’s shoe store and is working on a dramatic-sounding story, The Repentance of Lady Clinton by Betsy Warrington Ray.*   Even before Tacy appears to reveal that her father found their borrowed copy of Lady Audley’s Secret and threw it in the fire.

“He said it was trash.”

“Trash!” cried Betsy.  “I’m trying to write books just like it.”

Myself When Young by Daphne du Maurier #DDMreadingweek

Title: Myself When Young: The Shaping of a Writer
Author:  Daphne du Maurier
Publication:  Arrow Books, paperback, 1993 (originally published in 1977)
Genre: Nonfiction/Memoir
Occasion: Daphne du Maurier Reading Week

Plot: You probably know her as the author of Rebecca but du Maurier (1907 – 1989) wrote several other bestselling books that are equally memorable.  She came from a talented artistic family.  Her father was a famous actor, Sir Gerald du Maurier and her mother, Muriel Beaumont, an actress who met him in a play. Her grandfather was a well-known cartoonist for Punch, a popular humor magazine, and writer, French-born George du Maurier. He is best known for creating the character Svengali that became a catch-phrase for a coercive influence on someone.  Daphne was educated primarily at home before being “finished” in France, in the kind of family that summoned the children to say hello to guests briefly before sending them to the nursery with Nanny. Although not part of the nobility, the du Mauriers clearly mixed with all the right people due to Sir Gerald’s prominence.  Her upbringing seems fairly typical for an upper-middle-class British family but the drive and passion that developed in this shy young woman was all Daphne’s own.

Frederica by Georgette Heyer, Chapters 14 - 17

In which Alverstoke makes a move that unnerves Frederica, Jessamy comes to grief in a Pedestrian Curricle, Harry is rusticated, Lady Elizabeth comes to town, and a balloon ascension is planned

Chapter 14

Alverstoke surprises everyone by turning up for what Betsy Ray’s family would call Sunday Night Lunch. He dresses down in morning dress and manages to be the most elegant man in the room without no effort. Felix is delighted to see him and thanks Alverstoke for arranging the trip to the New Mint with Mr. Trevor (although it is doubtless Charles who did the legwork). Darcy Moreton is struck first by Alverstoke’s friendly response to Felix’s greeting and then by Alverstoke’s “warmer and more intimate” smile for Frederica.

Good God! mentally ejaculated Mr. Moreton. Sits the wind in that quarter? 

Hollywood Star (Book Review)

Title: Hollywood Star (Gloria Whitcomb, #3)
Author: Gladys Malvern
Publication: Julian Messner, Hardcover, 1953
Genre: Young Adult

this blurry cover was all I could find

Plot: Gloria Whitcomb, a talented but unknown ballerina from New York, has been cast to play Anna Pavlova in a movie, and heads to Los Angeles for the filming, chaperoned by her mother and young brother. It is hard for Gloria to leave her handsome fiancé behind in Manhattan, and she doesn’t realize the studio will want to promote her as glamorous and single. The stresses of acting for the first time before people who doubt her and being thrown into the company of handsome actors (with dubious motives) strain her performance and her relationship with Doug. Can Gloria triumph over Hollywood’s petty jealousies and stay true to the man she has loved for so long?

Audience: Young adult readers, fans of ballet fiction and of career novels

My Impressions: As a pre-teen I loved all of Gladys Malvern’s books, at least those found in the Newton and Brighton libraries. Most of her books were historical fiction, ranging from surprisingly compelling biblical fiction (Behold Your Queen, The Foreigner) to books set in colonial America. The Boys and Girls Library in Newton Corner had copies of the first two books in this series, Gloria Ballet Dancer and Prima Ballerina, and I read them many times, without knowing this third book existed until I was grown up. It is the weakest of the three but Gladys was clearly trying to convey as much as she could about the movie business for eager teens. She does a good job conveying the spite and backbiting that go on when an outsider is cast for a big part (luckily, Gloria has retained her girl next door personality and usually wins people over sooner or later), and she depicts two gossip columnists who must be based on Hedda Hopper and Louella Parsons, rivals who together had an audience of 75 million in their heyday.

On the movie set, Gloria is upstaged and belittled by her co-star, an actor who thinks he can take advantage of her lack of experience. She is assisted in standing up for herself by his rival, Jules Fletcher, not because he cares about Gloria but because Jules doesn’t want a rival male actor to gain in popularity. It is a sign of Gloria’s cluelessness that she never figures this out, and disappointing that her mother is too intimidated by Hollywood and Gloria’s success to provide the sensible mothering needed.

Those of us who suffered with Gloria during years of wondering if Doug Gardiner cared for her will not enjoy seeing her squabble with him or flirt with another man. It’s a little like when you think Betsy Ray and Joe Willard have finally worked out their differences and then you learn that in a book which doesn’t even exist, Betsy was flirting with Bob Baryhdt at the U*!

Anna Pavlova

Source: I obtained a copy of this book via Interlibrary Loan. Thank you to Rowan University in New Jersey for preserving and sharing it. This is one of what were called a Career Romance for Young Moderns. My library had only a handful because they were already dated in the 70s but I read them and so did @sadiestein.

* Maud Hart Lovelace always referred to the University of Minnesota as the U, so I did too. When I was about ten, some friend of my parents asked where I wanted to go to college, and when I said, importantly, “The U,” she asked, puzzled, “Which U?”

Betsy Was a Junior, Group Read, Part 9 - Finishing Up

Julia’s Career – Although Julia was dropped by the Epsilon Iotas, the sorority relented and voted her in at the last minute. Her talent (she had a significant part in the U’s production of The Mikado) and personality had impressed alumnae as well as the young women who had been rushing her, and at the last minute Norma (from whom Julia had snagged the boyfriend) was persuaded to remove her opposition. Julia wound up pledging and come home to Deep Valley to tell the Rays. However, when Mr. Ray told Julia that he and her mother now understood her commitment to music and were willing for her to go to Germany to study music, rather than return to the U for her sophomore year, Julia did not hesitate: “You’ll never be sorry,” she said, turning a joyful face to her father. We have discussed many times the wonderful parenting of the Rays. Julia knows that her father would prefer she used her voice for lullabies and her mother would prefer she stay at the U and enjoy the social life there, but their love and understanding of her goals makes them support her desire to study in Germany despite the expense and distance.

Tar – As has been discussed, Joe had always had to work to support himself and has not had much time for Deep Valley extracurriculars apart from the Essay Contest. This year, the day after the Essay Contest results are announced, Betsy and her friends arrive at school to find that someone has painted PHILOMATHIAN in orange paint on the high school roof. A stripe of tar underneath the letters prevented angry Zets from removing it. Miss Bangeter inspects the shoes of all the Philomathian boys for tar and identifies Squirrelly, Tony and Joe as the culprits. The school and doubtless Miss Bangeter are surprised that model student Joe is involved in this prank, but it is a sign that Joe has gained in confidence and is ready to become a real part of the Class of ’10.

Cab’s Father – The Sibleys host a lovely graduation party for Carney where Betsy hopes to encounter Joe but he has already left to spend the summer making money in the harvest fields. But there is bad news: Cab’s father dies and Cab decides to give up his plan of becoming an engineer to help run the family furniture store. This is the “time to grow up” message that Betsy had not fully absorbed after the disbanding of the Okto Deltas. I don’t recall noticing previously that the funeral was held in the Edwards’ parlor but I know the wakes for my father’s mother and grandfather were held in his home around 1940, not in a funeral parlor (I am sure the actual funerals were held in St. Theresa’s Church in Boston). Do any of you remember funerals or wakes of family members held at home?

Growing Up – Betsy goes to her music lesson and says goodbye to Miss Cobb’s nephew Leonard, who is going to Colorado mountains for his health. When she comes home, she finds a postcard from Joe! It says, “Did anyone ever tell you that you’re a good dancer? Joe.” Perhaps is a sign that Betsy is starting to mature (and that she knows Joe is The One) by the fact that she doesn’t skip about and show it off to her mother or to Julia. Instead she starts thinking about her behavior this past year, about the milestones in her life, and how her friends, such as Cab and Carney, are growing up. She realizes that all their choices are shaping them into the adults they are going to be, and she knows she wants to be a better human being than she has been this year. Betsy starts making one of her famous lists with goals for the future and the book ends with Betsy putting Joe’s postcard carefully into the cherished Uncle Keith’s Trunk.

What a satisfying end to Betsy Ray's tumultuous junior year! The stress and build up to the romantic dance at the banquet, and then the postcard from Joe which is jaunty and casual but sends a message for the future.

Betsy Was a Junior, Group Read, Part 8

Junior year is coming to a close, and a Deep Valley tradition is the Junior-Senior Banquet.  You will recall that Betsy was disappointed not to be appointed to chair a committee for the banquet, but due to the generosity (and perhaps humility) of Hazel Smith, who chaired the Decorating Committee, the trio are fully involved with the planning (which necessitates many meetings and even a sleepover at the Ray house).  The juniors labor to turn the school into a park, and those gifted domestically apparently cook the entire dinner.  Betsy spends so much time planning that she forgets to worry whether Dave Hunt, silent as to his intentions per usual, will turn up to take her to the banquet.  She even wears an old dress (unlike Betsy; also unlike Rosamond duJardin heroines who always have a new formal for every occasion).  Everything is perfect on this special day and evening: Hazel appreciates Betsy’s work planning the banquet; Stan seems to apologize to Betsy for having usurped her spot in the Essay Contest (although it wasn’t his fault he got chosen instead); Joe has created literary menus (I always love these); Stan and Miss Bangeter make great speeches.  Then it is time for dancing and the moment we’ve all been waiting for finally arrives (the moment that even those who don’t like BWAJ eagerly anticipate) when Joe approaches Betsy and says, “May I have a dance, Miss Ray?”   Her dance card is full but Betsy is determined not to wreck this opportunity as she has let others slip away:

In her freshman year he had asked to walk home with her from a party and she had had to turn him down.  After a long time he had asked to walk home with her from the library one evening.  Again she had had to turn him down.

“This would be three times and out,” she thought. “I have to break this jinx.”

She smiled.  “I’m going to give you a dance.  Some of these people who took two can just give one up.”

Joe’s dance card now has every dance marked for Phyllis except the second to last for Betsy.  Georgette Heyer would probably advise him that it is not seemly to dance with a young lady more than twice in an evening even if one is her escort, but we know that Phyllis is indifferent to the opinions of the polite world.   She does not, however, like rivals.  As the news that Joe asked Betsy for a dance spreads through the hall, Phyllis finds out and insists on being taken home.

Betsy is standing by the dance floor, partnerless, wondering if she should go hide in the cloak room when Joe reappears and sweeps her onto the floor, and as they dance Betsy wonders, understandably, what this means in terms of their future relationship.  Betsy knows that Joe isn’t the type to dump Phyllis but because Phyllis is a senior, she will graduate and disappear – leaving lots of possibilities for Betsy and Joe’s senior year.  “He whirled her as she had never been whirled before,” and the reader knows it is the long awaited beginning of Betsy and Joe’s romance and rejoices.

The other good news from the banquet is that Tony attends, dances with all the girls from the Crowd, and promises to come to Sunday Night Lunch.

(image above copyright to Betsy Was a Junior, HarperCollins)

Betsy Was a Junior, Group Read, Part 7

A whole year of botany? Shouldn’t they have been taking biology or chemistry? Perhaps the Deep Valley School Board had issues with creationism? Or maybe our heroines merely wanted an easy class. In contrast, my 15 year old niece has already taken biology, chemistry and was told to take physics or colleges wouldn’t think she was a serious student (Betsy does take physics her senior year which I had completely forgotten). If my college career had depended on a good grade in science, I would still be in high school. But just as my biology teacher disappeared at Christmas and was replaced by the driver’s ed teacher, so too Mr. Gaston has been “removed” from the English Department (probably not because of the rosy apple blossoms) and sent to teach Science, and there is no indication he knows much more about botany than Betsy, Tacy and Tib.

But the issue is procrastination more than botany. Mr. Gaston gave clear instructions about the herbariums on the first day of class, and the girls bought the necessary office supplies (always easier and more fun than actually doing the assignment). Suddenly, the project is due the next day!

Betsy Was a Junior, Group Read, Part 6

Even though I know Betsy deserves it, I suffer for her when the bolts from the blue start coming:  first, she and the other Okto Deltas are excluded from heading committees for the Junior/Senior Banquet.   Then, much, much worse – Miss Clarke unhappily tells Betsy that there is bad feeling against the sorority and for that reason she won’t be asked to represent the Zets in the Essay Contest (and we all know this should have been Betsy’s time after she squandered her opportunity freshman year and then broke up with Phil Brandish right before the sophomore year essay) (it is endearing how indignant Joe is on Betsy’s behalf when he hears the news).

Next, Julia comes home unexpectedly from the U to reveal that Rush Week, which she and the whole family had eagerly awaited, has been bitterly painful.  The Epsilon Iotas have dropped her!  Someone in the group has blackballed her!  This is the first time that the beautiful and talented Julia hasn’t gotten her way.  Mr. Ray is indignant but sees the larger picture, “Julia isn’t the only little girl whose feelings have been hurt, I imagine,” he said.  “It’s a mighty funny thing that the State University, supported by the public, can have private clubs which are so important.”   But privately he and Mrs. Ray decide they will allow Julia to follow her voice teacher to Germany to study music seriously.  They decide to wait until after Rush Week to tell her.  In fact, as you know, the Epsilon Iotas relent at the last minute and Julia is voted it.  I don’t know if we’ve ever discussed the fact that Julia’s flirtatious ways finally caught up with her – the woman blackballing her is upset because Julia stole her boyfriend, something Julia had joked about earlier in the book.

The next bolt from the blue is when Alice reveals that Tony was suspended for coming to school drunk, and has been “going around with a perfectly awful girl.”  Without the Crowd to keep him engaged in wholesome activities, he has gone to the dogs, and that can at least be partially attributed to the Okto Deltas (although admittedly, everyone wanted him in the fraternity and he was the one who rejected it - even if exclusive, it would have been better than drinking and playing pool in inappropriate parts of Deep Valley - yes, even Deep Valley apparently has its dark side).   Betsy knows she let Tony down.  When Miss Bangeter asks Carney to persuade the other girls to end Okto Delta, Betsy is relieved.  She knows it’s time.

There was an interesting article in the Washington Post this week about the 100^th anniversary of the Delta Sigma Theta, a sorority with a history of public service which the largest African-American women's organization in the country .  “Well-known Deltas include: Betty Shabazz, the widow of Malcolm X; civil rights icon Fannie Lou Hamer; human rights activist Mary McLeod Bethune; actress Ruby Dee; singers Roberta Flack, Aretha Franklin and Lena Horne; and congresswomen Shirley Chisholm and Barbara Jordan.”   The achievements of these women (and many less famous) make their sorority sound quite admirable, and of course most modern sororities emphasize community service to some extent  so I am not condemning all sororities by any means but my college didn’t have any so my experience is all second hand.  The closest I got was when my aunt was chosen the Sweetheart of Sigma Chi when she was at Duke and I was about 12.

In contrast to all this gloom, the funniest chapter in BWAJ (and one of the funniest in the high school books) is when Betsy, Tacy and Tib suddenly realize their herbarium assignment is due, but that must wait for another day.

Betsy Was a Junior, Group Read, Part 5

Even after Betsy Ray vows to make Okto Delta more serious it was uphill work. The girls’ activities become more and more frivolous, and Winona suggests the boys should either join or start their own group. Carney drives the girls to the St. John game in the Sibley auto, with an Okto Delta pennant fastened to the front. Even with Tib sitting on Winona’s lap, how did they all fit in the car? (I always wondered how the Gilbreths all fit in their car too.) Dreadful moment – when Hazel Smith starts over to join Betsy at the football game, realizes she’d be intruding on the sorority and withdraws. That is an awful feeling, whether you are the inadvertent crasher or someone like Betsy who did not intend to hurt Hazel’s feelings (but made no reparation). And isn’t it typical that all of Deep Valley High knows about the sorority except Joe Willard? Of course, Joe has better things to do, like earn his living, but in a way he is the unwitting cause of the Okto Deltas – had he been dating Betsy instead of Phyllis, suggestible Betsy might have had a more serious junior year.

Betsy Was a Junior, Group Read, Part 2

The consensus from the Betsy-Tacy listserv seems to be that you don’t want to do high school again. I am telling you, it would be more fun this time. We are better dressed, have better hair, and have learned how to be good friends. Speaking of friends, every plan for a new persona (i.e., Betsy Ray, every September) needs a gimmick or some kind of motivation or what they now call an elevator speech. For Betsy, the long-hoped-for return of Tib Muller from Milwaukee is another vehicle to launch what she hopes will be a special year. Warning signal: when Tib reveals that she has been laughing the silly laugh Betsy advised, although her mother feels it creates a false impression (Mrs. Muller was always a practical parent). Betsy revels in the interest Tib arouses from Deep Valley boys at Murmuring Lake, and in addition, she knows it will be more fun to talk about boys to Tib (who is interested and eager to date after attending a girls school in Wisconsin) than to Tacy, who is a loyal friend but doesn’t understand what the fuss is about. Cynically speaking, having a cute friend who is new in town is a good way to be in the center of activity, and Betsy knows this, although it’s not as if Betsy has ever been suffered from lack of social life.

Having Tib back may help attract some masculine attention at the Lake and at Deep Valley High, but at home Betsy is facing a different challenge as Julia is about to leave for her freshman year of college at the U. Betsy knows what a hole Julia will leave in the Ray family and realizes she should try to help the family cope with her absence. I love Julia’s enthusiasm for everything she undertakes, and I must have been very influenced by her glamorous departure for college because for years (junior high and early HS) when people asked me where I wanted to go to college, I would say, “The U, of course!” “U of what?” they would ask, puzzled. “UMass?” When they finally understood that I meant the University of Minnesota, they were even more perplexed. “Do you know someone who goes there?” they would ask. Ah, not exactly.
 
Anyway, Betsy has a lot of goals for this year: compensate for Julia’s absence, learn to play the piano, develop her writing, get involved in student government, and as I mentioned the other day, she boldly says she’ll date Joe Willard. Instinctively, she knows that she and Joe share interests in a way no one else does at school, but it has been hard to develop their friendship because of his pride. But if she “weren’t going to go out with Joe this year, I’d try to make that Dave Hunt talk,” Betsy thinks to herself.

Sometimes the planning and anticipation is more fun than the reality. Once it is time for the first day of school (Betsy wearing a new sailor suit – check out this Pinterest page  – on the left there is a picture of two “home frocks” from 1910 that seemed promising – check out the blue dress on the left), Betsy tries flirting with Joe Willard and he doesn’t respond. Later in the day, to her horror, she learns he has started dating, but the lucky girl isn’t Betsy – it is Phyllis Brandish (who, like Tib, has left Browner Seminary for Deep Valley High School), twin sister of Betsy’s ex.

Betsy realizes her plans have gone aft-agley [does Maud mention this quotation comes from Robert Burns (1785): “The best laid schemes o’ Mice an’ Men, gang aft agley” – often go wrong. In Betsy’s era there would have been a lot of memorization of poetry] and the first day of school is totally ruined when she sees Joe with Phyllis. After one day of school, she has to step back and revamp her plans. Some people can adjust and move on without hesitation, but I think the setback with Joe catapults Betsy into a frivolous mindset that is not sufficiently offset by a sense of responsibility, and which causes her to (again) lose sight of her real self and goals. “Agree or disagree?” as my IT pal at work likes to say.

English friends who read the high school books are often surprised by the coed school and the unchaperoned socializing that goes on in 1908-09 Deep Valley, but for the moment, we will just enjoy the Crowd and ignore the question of whether Betsy is too boy-crazy. And maybe Joe Willard is off with Phyllis but Tony Markham is delighted the Rays are back in town: “[h]e tried to act nonchalant about their return but the affection he felt for them all shone in his big black eyes.” Betsy’s crush on Tony is long gone but there is no denying he fits right into the Ray home….