Origins: The Brady Bunch

So, which Brady were you? I always identified with Jan, who wore glasses and had all those middle-kid issues that her male counterpart Peter never seemed to have. I despised Cindy and envied Marsha to the point of dislike. It was probably self-hatred on my part because I was actually most like Marsha--self-absorbed and blond--only without the good grades and football-player boyfriends.

The Brady Bunch made me want to be part of an enormous family. I secretly, briefly ached for my lovebird parents to get a divorce so I could have really cute older step-brothers who would have really cute friends. (I had two younger sisters--we always begged our parents to adopt us an older brother.) I wanted to move to California, too. Everything looked so clean and cheerful in California, unlike Kentucky which had tornadoes and Ohio River Valley humidity.

The show was unabashedly unrealistic, of course. The bathrooms had no toilets and Mike's office didn't seem to be actually a part of the house. And there was Astroturf in the backyard. Best of all, the family had a freaking housekeeper! What, exactly, did Mrs. Brady do all day? It was escapism at its finest.

I used to make up scenarios for the characters and re-plot the episodes. While I craved the predictability of the situations, I also liked that I knew the characters well enough to give them other things to do. I wanted them to run away from home, when they fought, I wanted to see actual blood, I wanted Marsha and Greg to--*gasp*--kiss! I wanted ex-Mrs. Brady and Carol's ex-husband to show up and demand their rightful places as parents. (They were dead, I think. But I wasn't in my zombie phase yet, so their adventures were rather pedestrian and involved drawing-room comedy situations.) Most of all, I wanted to appear in the episodes as a cousin, a friend, a sister, or a neighbor. I imagined myself going to Hollywood and walking onto the set like I belonged there. Though I was never really interested in actually meeting Greg. I didn't feel like I could trust him.

I never watched those creepy Brady follow-up shows--not intentionally, anyway. I think I stumbled on a wedding one once. Plus, I saw the bizarre feature film. Some things are best left un-satirized. (Wasn't the sitcom satire enough?!) But I did see a couple of episodes of the reality show during which Christopher Knight(Peter) and Adrienne Curry (ANTM winner) planned their wedding. I don't have much hope for them, though. Peter was just never a serious person.

(Brady photo via. I also took the Brady Bunch quiz there. Eight out of ten correct! Is that as sad as I think it might be?)

Origins: Charlotte Bronte's Jane Eyre

Novels just don't get any more Gothic than Jane Eyre. This was another fifth grade book fair purchase, and it made an indelible impression on me. Have you read it? Yes, it's full of melodrama, but it's narrated in the first person in an unsentimental yet powerfully affecting voice.

Jane, an unhappy, unattractive orphan suffers mistreatment at the hands of an unsympathetic aunt and is sent away to Lowood, a religious school for girls. Soon after arriving, she is unfairly branded by the director of the school as a liar and a troublemaker. But she remains there until adulthood when she takes the position of governess to the young ward (Adele) of the gruff and mysterious Edward Rochester of Thornfield Hall. Thornfield Hall is a great English house with a history of secrets and a number of strange inhabitants. Jane falls in love with Edward, but on the day of their wedding, she learns that he is hiding his mad first wife, the stunning Bertha Mason Rochester, in the upper reaches of the house. Jane runs away, but is plagued by her memories and love for Edward. It all works out in the end--sort of. Bertha ends up dead and Jane, now an heiress herself, gets her man, though he's badly damaged and nearly blind.

What more could a mousy, spectacles-wearing, preteen girl want? I identified completely with Jane--and who wouldn't? She speaks to the insufficiently cuddled child in us all. It's that intimate, first-person voice that does it, I think. Jane isn't lovely, or insincerely gracious. How heartening to a young girl to read about a woman who is treasured for her true wit, intellect and lack of pretension.

I love the scope of this story, the early history of Jane's life through to the birth of her first child. At the risk of sounding trite, I'll describe it as a satisfying book: all the questions are answered. Though now that I write that, I do recall wondering about Jane's parents. They are so long off stage and Jane doesn't speculate much about them.

Jane Eyre is one of those books I wish I could go back and read for the first time once again.



My favorite film adaptation is the 1944 version with Orson Welles and Joan Fontaine. While hardly homely, Joan Fontaine played the role with quiet assurance; Welles was homely enough and obnoxious enough to make the perfect Edward--what Welles had going for him was intensity and passion. Let's not even discuss the fact that Timothy Dalton played Edward Rochester in one version. Ellen Page, the lead in the recent film, Juno, will play Jane. She's just too attractive, though. Ruth Wilson was perfect as Jane in the 2006 mini-series. Edward is difficult to cast--for me, anyway. Who, then? Clive Owen is too pretty. Ditto for Daniel Craig and Colin Firth.

Any thoughts?

Origins: Perry Mason

Perry Mason was my first television detective. (He was technically a lawyer, of course, but he always solved his own cases.) On the nights when my father was out of town, my mother would let us watch Perry Mason reruns as we ate our Noodles and Ground Beef Casserole. For years afterward, I associated Perry Mason with comfort food. Those were black & white days, of course. I don't think the original series with Raymond Burr ever ventured into Technicolor.

The episodes usually started out with some damsel in distress who was about to be arrested for a murder that she didn't commit, and ended with a stirring speech by Perry Mason and a surprise witness that Perry's associate Paul Drake would bring in at the very last minute. Each case was wrapped up all neat and tidy--and Perry would take Della Street's arm as she laughingly replied to one of his witty bons mots and they would stride off to lunch with Paul Drake close on their heels, grinning because he always got the joke.

The three of them were a tight little club, though I was always disappointed that Della didn't get to do more exciting things. So often she had to stay in the office and hang around the phone. Perry was a take-charge kind of guy. He rarely faltered in his judgment of his client or the true culprits. His suits and ties were always neatly pressed and he never appeared out of breath. Perry Mason was solid, dependable and reassuring--just what every good lawyer should be. I liked that he was smart, too, and was able to unravel complicated mysteries. He set the standard very high for the television detectives who came later. I wonder that so many courtroom dramas kept the Perry Mason mystery/courtroom formula for so long.


Thanks to the magic of Uncle Ted Turner's TCM channel, I finally got to see some of the early Perry Mason films from the thirties: The Case of the Velvet Claws and The Case of the Curious Bride. Like the series, the movies were based on the Erle Stanley Gardner novels, but the Perry Mason of those films (Warren Williams) was rather more debonair and adventurous than Raymond Burr's Mason. He was almost like William Powell of The Thin Man films. Those early films made me think that I should probably dig out some of Gardner's novels.

Wikipedia says that Raymond Burr was involved in twenty-two of the twenty-five Perry Mason revival films that were made beginning in the 1980s. I watch them when they're on, though they got a little sad toward the end of the run. Still, they are like comfort food.

Nothing can beat the Perry Mason theme, though!

Origins: The Secret Garden

Frances Hodgson Burnett had serious issues with the children of the Edwardian British upper class. Both The Little Princess and The Secret Garden featured wealthy girls whose parents had some connection to British rule in India. Sarah Crewe (Little Princess) is abandoned at an English boarding school (Miss Minchin's) by her father and spoiled Mary Lennox (Secret Garden) is sent to a relative's home in England during a cholera outbreak. I was neither British nor Edwardian nor rich nor--well, let's just leave the spoiled question open for debate--but I certainly identified with these two girls. (I never did read Burnett's Little Lord Fauntleroy because I saw a film version and decided it was too saccharine for my taste--besides, it was about a boy.)

While I was given a hardcover copy of The Little Princess by a relative who probably thought it was funny to give me a book with that particular title (she told me more than once that I was spoiled), I'm pretty sure I picked up The Secret Garden at the book fair in fourth or fifth grade.

I used to think that my fondness for Gothic novels started with Jane Eyre, but now that I think about it, it must have started with The Secret Garden. The house to which Mary Lennox is sent is owned by an uncle-by-marriage, Archibald Craven. Like Edward Rochester in Jane Eyre, he roams the world mourning his tragic past. Petulant Mary is left in the care of servants; she eventually makes friends with Dickon, a chambermaid's young brother who shows her real kindness and won't put up with her unpleasantness. When Mary learns of the secret garden which has been locked since the death of Archibald's wife, Lily, who fell from a tree, she explores it and eventually begins to cultivate it. She is eventually transformed by the act of caring for something outside herself--and when she discovers Colin, Archibald's invalid son who is himself a spoiled recluse, she begins to rehabilitate him as well.

There is very little darkness in The Secret Garden. Lily's death is a background event and she doesn't exactly haunt the place. The garden itself is deliciously mysterious, and, of course, the existence of Colin is a real shock. (Colin's invalidism embodies the height of the literary romanticism of the period. Think of Klara in Spyri's Heidi, a much earlier novel.) The garden does seem magical, even if Burnett made it an overwhelming metaphor for spiritual rehabilitation. As unsentimental as I am and have always been, I appreciated the transformative nature of the story. I think I saw the possibility that I, like Mary, was capable of some act of goodness. (Funny concept, that--the desire to be good. I remember thinking that I wanted that, wanted to bask in the glow of approval for my elusive "goodness.") The rebel inside me chafes at the notion that my reaction was just what Burnett and her Edwardian publisher were looking for!

The scene I remember most vividly is one in which Dickon and Mary conspire to have Colin (who has always been on an invalid's pale diet) begin drinking fresh, warm cow's milk. Somehow that just seemed amazing to me.

Origins: Bewitched

Who wouldn't want Elizabeth Montgomery's signature character Samantha Stephens as a mother? She was as beautiful as a storybook princess, calm, occasionally silly, loving, forgiving and--in a pinch--she could wiggle her nose and conjure up ice cream or a pony, take you back in time to meet real royalty or turn neighborhood burglars into pigs or instantly produce a backyard birthday party with circus animals and a giant cake.

Bewitched was a 1/2 hour tv comedy about Darrin and Samantha Stephens--Darrin was your basic ad man and Samantha was a full-blooded witch. They lived a quiet life in Westport, Connecticut, with Samantha trying very hard to get through the day without using witchcraft to help. Darrin was controlling in that way, never wanting her to use her witchcraft. Given that feminism was in its early days then, their relationship seems almost metaphorical now: Darrin obviously wanted to be in charge of everything and Samantha was to be subservient. It never worked out for Darrin, of course.

But I was only two years old when it came on in 1964, and ten when it went off the air ; I knew absolutely nothing about the politics between the sexes. I just knew that everything seemed possible for that half hour I watched each week. Supernatural beings were always showing up in the living room while Darrin was in the kitchen filling the ice bucket. My only experience with the supernatural--magic, even--up to that point had come from bad amateur magicians at parties and the more entertaining fairytales.

It just all seemed so darned plausible. I loved it when Samantha would catch "witchy" illnesses that made her break out in polka dots and caused her magic to spin out of control. I adored Samantha's mother Endora and her pseudo-wicked ways. I adored Sabrina, Samantha's twin cousin, and recall understanding very early on that it was Montgomery playing both roles.



I'm glad that my first real thoughts about the supernatural world weren't necessarily dark. They were bright with possibility and comic relief. (Though I will admit to being a tad afraid of Endora--she's the character who I most imagined would come out of the television and get me.)

I could go on and on about this show. There's a wonderful website that has more information on Bewitched than anyone could read in a week: Bewitched@Harpies Bazaar.

And with apologies to otherwise brilliant Ephron sisters--don't get me started on this abomination.

BTW--Elizabeth Montgomery was the best Lizzie Borden ever!

Where Did That Come From: Prologue

(marc chagall's adam and eve)



Everything is derivative. I can't speak for other writers--but it's been painfully obvious to me for a long time now that there hasn't been a truly original idea in our little garden since the snake offered Eve that apple. Every literary idea flows from that moment (metaphorical or not--you pick), that image: greed, love, desire, lust, remembrance, betrayal, the possibility of forgiveness and redemption.

Before we sent Pomegranate to preschool, I could trace the origins of everything she said, every expressed thought or action. I could trace her words and ideas to the books we read to her, the television programs she watched, the people she spent time with, the conversations we had. But once she was away from us for just a few hours a week, she started using new words and acting out new frustrations. I felt her slipping away from us then. She was no longer just an extension of the two of us, but was on her way to becoming her unique self. She was constantly adding new information, building on what she already had (as she still does).

I don't know about you, but I get overwhelmed with information. It doesn't help that I often forcefeed it to myself by following random paths on the Internet an hour or two a day. Sometimes I think my brain cannot hold it all--actually, I know it can't. I have a terrible memory for things I don't work hard to remember. But it's all there in my brain, somewhere. If I've seen it, it still exists in my head, informing my thoughts in some small way.

I used to worry a lot about writing stories that reminded people of stories they'd already read. When critics thought they were being clever by dismissing elements of Isabella Moon as being too like the Julia Roberts vehicle "Sleeping With the Enemy," it always made me laugh. I think I've seen all of fifteen non-consecutive minutes of that film--and, oh, I'm sure it was the first story that featured a woman on the run from an abusive husband or lover. My ideas are the sum total of every book or film or treatise or cereal box or parental lecture or lover's entreaty (See, I repeated the word "lover" from the last sentence, built on it, used it in a similar way: it echoes. ha!), or great painting or photograph I've ever taken in. But it's my duty and my pleasure to put all that stuff through the unique filter that is me, and, I hope, produce something that has a pleasing sense of newness about it. That's what I worry about now.

But don't take me too seriously--All this is to simply introduce my plan to share with you (over the next few weeks) some of the many things which I believe influence my writing. I'll toss a brave guest or two into the Handbasket, too. (Hope they won't be lonely now that Octoberguest! is long gone.) I wouldn't want you to think I'm just navel-gazing!