Almost Famous Women (28 page)

Romaine Remains:
I came across this haunted, unusual figure in many books about Paris:
Wild Heart
by Suzanne Rodriguez,
Sylvia Beach and the Lost Generation
by Noel Riley Fitch, but most important, Meryle Secrest's (out of print) biography of Romaine,
Between Me and Life
, titled after Romaine's sentiment that her dead mother stood between her and living happily. I have framed prints of Romaine's line drawings, which I cut from Whitney Chadwick's catalog of Romaine's work,
Amazons in the Drawing Room
. Chadwick points out an element of Romaine's work that made a deep impression on me—the unusual depiction of “heroic femininity.”

Hazel Eaton and the Wall of Death:
Let me be intellectually honest here—Internet rabbit hole.

The Autobiography of Allegra Byron:
I first heard of Allegra when I studied at Oxford for a summer, and also read Benita Eisler's
Byron: Child of Passion, Fool of Fame
. Furthermore, Dolly Wilde's fascination with Byron and her similarities to his daughter are pointed out in
Oscaria
, the privately printed book of remembrances about Dolly. Both girls were given over to convents at an early age, which was not particularly unusual at the time but could not have been a welcome experience. Allegra's story took off in my head years later, after I had children of my own, and could get more inside the head of a toddler.

Expression Theory:
I saw a stunning photograph of Lucia Joyce in a hand-sewn costume, which led me to Carol Loeb Shloss's biography,
Lucia Joyce: To Dance in the Wake
. I found myself curious about the moment family members decided Lucia was deeply troubled; throwing the chair took on significance.

Saving Butterfly McQueen:
I don't remember how I first heard of Butterfly, but when I found out that the
Gone With the Wind
star was an atheist, and had hoped to donate her body to science, I was intrigued, and couldn't help but imagine the waves of patronizing conversation she must have endured.

Who Killed Dolly Wilde?:
Joan Schenkar's biography of Dolly Wilde,
Truly Wilde
, opened a door in my imagination, perhaps because she invited her readers to do just that, ending the introduction this way: “I have only been able to bring her to you complete with missing parts. It remains for you to do what Dolly could have done so beautifully for us all: Imagine the rest.” Other sources include
Oscaria
, the private volume of recollections Natalie Barney had printed in Dolly's
memory, which I am thankful for Bennington Librarian Oceana Wilson's help in obtaining access to. Additionally, Neil McKenna's
The Secret Life of Oscar Wilde
and Richard Ellmann's biography.

A High-Grade Bitch Sits Down for Lunch:
When my mother-in-law passed away in 2009, it took me two years to read her favorite book,
West with the Night
. My mother-in-law was brave and athletic, a horsewoman, a young pilot, and a motorcycle-driving veterinarian—like Beryl Markham, a boundary breaker. I now teach Beryl's memoir, and celebrate the fact that it's one of the few books where we see a woman portrayed as an active hero of her own adventures with the absence of a central love story. While Beryl was a record-breaking pilot and author (not without authorship controversy, mind you), she was also Africa's first female certified horse trainer, a feat that required grit, fearlessness, and athleticism. I like to see women working in literature, using their bodies.

I also read biographical work on Markham from Mary S. Lovell and Errol Trzebinski, as well as Juliet Barnes's
The Ghosts of Happy Valley.

The Internees:
While researching an article about environmentalism and makeup, I came across an anecdote about the boxes of lipstick from Lieutenant Colonel Mervin Willett Gonin, who helped liberate the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp in 1945. Later, a friend, Henry Frechette, sent me the picture of Banksy's visual reinterpretation of the internees wearing lipstick. This, to me, is an unpretty and profound take on fame and femininity.

The Lottery, Redux:
I was asked by McSweeney's to write a “cover story” of a classic, and I chose Shirley Jackson's “The Lottery,”
because it's the first short story I remember reading, and I drive past her house in Bennington often. I knew I wanted to give homage to it with a matriarchal lineage in mind, and the idea that we pay for the mistakes our forebears make.

Hell-Diving Women: Oxford American
asked me to write an essay on the International Sweethearts of Rhythm for their annual music issue. I had the pleasure of losing myself in research, and then finding out that the band played long ago in my hometown of Rocky Mount, North Carolina. After the article I found myself still dwelling on the material, and wanting to write a story. For further research, see D. Antoinette Handy's (out of print) biography on the Sweethearts and Jezebel Productions's short documentary
Tiny and Ruby: Hell-Divin' Women
(the name of Tiny and Ruby's post–World War II band).

There are other books which have enriched my imagination, including but not limited to:
Becoming Modern: The Life of Mina Loy
by Carolyn Burke;
The Well of Loneliness
by Radclyffe Hall;
Women of the Left Bank
by Shari Benstock;
Nightwood
and
Ladies Almanack
by Djuna Barnes.

T
hanks to the editors and journals who published these stories, particularly David Haglund at PEN, Caitlin Horrocks and David Lynn at
The Kenyon Review
, Sven Birkerts and Bill Pierce at
AGNI
, Dave Daley at
FiveChapters
, Desiree Andrews, formerly of
Tin House
, Beth Staples at
Ecotone
, and Daniel Gumbiner at
McSweeney's
.

My gratitude to my phenomenal agent, Julie Barer, and the rest of Team Barer, William Boggess and Gemma Purdy, who are as talented as they are supportive. Thanks to my brilliant editor and friend, Kara Watson, and the rest of the Scribner team, for being enthusiastic about another round of stories.

And all kinds of thanks to my family, particularly Mom, Dad, Emily, Evans, Sarah, John, Bob, and the rest of my tribe in Shafts-bury, like Tammy and Kathy, who help keep the ship afloat. It is a strange and beautiful ark, with toothless cats and old dogs.

To my husband, Bo, thank you for your equanimity, support, and love. And my ferociously smart daughters, Frasier and Zephyr, there is very little peace in your toddler ways, but endless inspiration. We are bolder together.

Scribner

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This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real places are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and events are products of the author's imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or places or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

Copyright © 2015 by Megan Mayhew Bergman

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First Scribner hardcover edition January 2015

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Jacket design by Tal Goretsky

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available.

“The White Stag” by Ezra Pound, from PERSONAE, copyright © 1926 by Ezra Pound. Reprinted by permission of New Directions Publishing Corp.

“Little Fish,” from THE COMPLETE POEMS OF D. H. LAWRENCE by D. H. Lawrence, edited by Vivian de Sola Pinto and F. Warren Roberts, copyright © 1964, 1971 by Angelo Ravagli and C. M. Weekley, Executors of the Estate of Frieda Lawrence Ravagli. Used by permission of Viking Penguin, a division of Penguin Group (USA) LLC.

These stories have appeared previously in print: “The Pretty, Grown-Together Children” (
PEN America
); “The Siege at Whale Cay” (
The Kenyon Review
); “Romaine Remains” (
AGNI
); “The Autobiography of Allegra Byron” (
FiveChapters
); “Expression Theory” (
Tin House
); “Saving Butterfly McQueen” (
Ecotone)
; “The Lottery, Redux” (
McSweeney's
).

ISBN 978-1-4767-8656-8

ISBN 978-1-4767-8657-5 (ebook)