Listening to Madeleine: A Portrait of Madeleine L'Engle in Many Voices (review)

Marcus, Leonard S. Listening to Madeleine: A Portrait of Madeleine L'Engle in Many Voices. Farrar, 2012 [336p] ISBN 978-0-374-298975 $27.00

Marcus, noted children's-literature scholar and sometime GSLIS adjunct lecturer, offers up yet another provocative and multifaceted portrait of a well-known children's author, this time training his keen eye on A Wrinkle in Time author Madeleine L'Engle. A writer whose dramatic personality has sparked nearly as much discussion as her religious mediations and works of science fiction, L'Engle is here remembered as friend, matriarch, mentor, and icon, in a series of interviews with L'Engle's most intimate acquaintances as well as editors, librarians, and teachers who have been impacted by her work. Former Bulletin editor Betsy Hearne discusses her 1998 interview with L'Engle during which they talked about the balance between family and professional obligations; Christine Jenkins, former CCB director, shares a story about her mostly unpleasant run-in with the writer at an ALA conference. Marcus's selected interviewees range from the devoted fan to the less than enthusiastic critic and the resulting portrait is unexpectedly complex, a far cry from the usual soft-focus posthumous homage, and it will likely offer new insights to both scholars and readers who have enjoyed (or disliked, for that matter) her work.