The Remarkable Kinship of Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings and Ellen Glasgow by Ashley Andrews Lear (review)

In her well-researched study, The Remarkable Kinship of Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings and Ellen Glasgow, Ashley Andrews Lear thoroughly analyzes the extraordinary friendship and professional relationship between two distinguished Pulitzer Prize winning novelists: Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings and Ellen Glasgow. Lear initially emphasizes the striking differences between the two writers in age, career position, and most importantly the setting-bound genres to which their critical reputations have been firmly linked—farm novels set in the remote, ecologically unique Florida scrub country and novels of manners set in urban Richmond, Virginia, respectively. As Lear states in her introductory observations, "the two authors seem to have been cut from different cloth" (p. 1). However, Lear soon turns to shared aspects of their lives and art: common experiences of physical ailments, such as cardiovascular problems; social interests, such as their storied success in hosting gourmet dinner parties, celebrated in Rawlings's cookbook Cross Creek Cookery (1942), and house guests for extended visits at their iconic homes; and nature-centric literary aesthetics, such as their shared use of tree symbolism (p. 36).

The seven body chapters can be read as separate essays on the intersections between the two writers, and for this reason, there is some overlap in the chapters' subject matter, stemming from the non-chronological organization of the study. Similar to Rawlings and Glasgow's freewheeling intimate conversations and correspondence during the last seven years of the latter's life (1938-45), which reveals the interwoven strands of memory and imagination in their works, Lear does not restrict her analysis to a linear history. For example, chapters one and two, "A Letter and a Dream" and "A Certain Measure of Achievement," both expansively ponder the significance of crucial letters exchanged between Rawlings and Glasgow. In chapter one, Lear initiates her analysis with a careful reading of a letter written by Rawlings to Glasgow that is well known to critics of both writers. Lear highlights the significance of this moving letter in which Rawlings expresses the unexpectedly strong bond she felt with her mentor by sharing details of a haunting dream that she had following their first meeting at Glasgow's home in Richmond. Chapter two builds off of their friendship's inaugural letter, which Glasgow had written to Rawlings to praise and congratulate Rawlings for the success of The Yearling (1938), inviting the younger writer to meet in person.

The chapters following the first two explore an array of meanings stemming from their profound, correspondence-born connection, which prompted Rawlings to undertake a never completed official biography of Glasgow after her mentor's death in 1945. These chapters address important areas of comparison—and some contrast—between the two writers in the development of their creativity and writing techniques. Chapter three addresses their relationships with family members, particularly siblings—each had a complex relationship with a brother named, coincidentally, Arthur—and the difficulties of parents whose marriages were troubled, compounded by the early death of the favored parent (Rawlings's father and Glasgow's mother). Chapter four addresses the similar issues that motivated each to civic engagement: Rawlings's environmental advocacy to conserve the unique flora and fauna of the Florida scrub country and Glasgow's commitment to the era's growing animal rights movement and her leadership roles in the Richmond Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, which would inherit her estate. Chapter five is an exploration of the two writers' conflicted attitudes toward literary regionalism, while chapter six discusses how their personal experiences of disappointment in romantic relationships prompted both to take unsentimental approaches to romantic love in their novels. Finally, chapter seven deals with their similarly mixed but often constructive literary legacies in regard to social justice issues, particularly racism and class inequalities.

In her concluding "Afterword," Lear contends that Glasgow and Rawlings's unique bond is an accomplishment to be honored—an accomplishment that critics of their work had overlooked prior...