Stories for Mothers and Daughters - A British Library Women Writers Collection

I used to start reviews of short story collections saying something like, “I don’t normally gravitate towards short stories”. But I can’t make that claim anymore. In less than a year I went from someone who almost never read short stories to someone who loves them. I enjoy sitting with a short story and knowing that I will be able to find out what happens in the end without staying up past my bedtime. I love that short stories can act as a snapshot, capturing a moment in time. They aren’t required to take us on a sweeping journey, but they might. And they might just capture a woman ironing clothes, while being a million miles away in her thoughts, or a mother and daughter going to the cinema, or a woman wandering her home and missing her daughters. Stories for Mothers and Daughters is full of small moments, big emotions, and the complicated relationships between mothers and daughters. Apologies for the length of this review. I tried to be brief, but there are 16 stories in this collection, and apparently, I had a lot of things to say about them.

“Week-End” by Richmal Crompton (1931)

A woman waits in expectation for her two daughters to come home for the weekend. They bring two friends with them, and basically create chaos in their mother‘s life while they’re there. She says that neither of her daughters is like her, as she had hoped. They don’t enjoy quiet time, and they certainly aren’t bookish. They remind her of her husband, Bruce. It is clear she loves her daughters, but she gives a sigh of relief and smiles when they are gone and her home is quiet again. I can’t say I blame her. The group of four girls together sound more wild than a bunch of monkeys. They also sound very young indeed. They certainly cannot be old enough to be working in an office, but then maybe that’s because I identified with the mother!

“Maternal Devotion” by Sylvia Townsend Warner (1947)

Very amusing story about a woman, Cordelia Finch, who has all of her unwanted suitors sit with her mother. 

“I’m always alarmed when I see people plunge into gardening. Still, if your mother enjoys it ... Besides, there is the Fifth Commandment. I read right through the Ten Commandments the other day, and I was surprised to find how many of them I agreed with. But it would have saved a lot of talk, as well as being much lighter to carry, if Moses had just boiled them down to one compact little commandment—‘Thou shalt not interfere.’ I knew a Mrs Prothero who was perfectly devoted to gardening, and one day when she was being shown around a friend’s garden she saw a weed and tried to pull it up. It happened to be a tight-rooted wolfsbane, and while she was tussling with it, something snapped and she went blind in one eye. Could you have a plainer warning against meddling?” (14)

By the time her mother is through talking their ear off, they are running for the hills. Too funny! 

“The Value of Being Seen” by Inez Holden (1945)

This story is about Daphne, a reluctant debutant. Forced to go to dances night after night, by her mother with the expectation that Daphne be seen, because according Daphne’s mother being seen is the most important thing. But no one sees Daphne. 

She seemed to be seeing hundreds of eyes, which had no separate existence simply a mass of eyes like caviare among noses; they did not seem to be anyone’s specially, they were only a great number of eyes, liquid and dead. So this was her first dance. Her mother’s words about the value of being seen came into her mind, but these eyes did not seem to be looking at her. They seemed to be looking, not at anyone or anything, but only looking. (21)

It is not just that they don’t notice her, it’s as though they cannot actually see her. And eventually she becomes a shade. This interesting story has a spectacular ending, one I’ll be thinking about for some time. 

I really enjoyed the writing of this one and was wondering why the author’s name sounded so familiar, when I realised that’s because I have two of her books on my shelves, Blitz Writing and There’s No Story There. I have not read them yet, but they had been on my wishlist for a while and when I heard that Handheld Press were closing their doors, they were two of the ones I purchased. After reading this sample of her writing, I’m even more excited to get to them.

“Psalms” by Jeanette Winterson (1998)

This one is about a woman who tries to get a job as a tea-taster. Goodness! Who wouldn’t want that job?! She has to fill out a questionnaire, at the end of which she is asked to write about the experience she considers the most significant in the forming of her character. She writes about how when she was little her mother wanted to get her a pet. There’s the impression she would have liked a dog or even a ferret, she already has an imaginary bunny named, Ezra. But her mother decides a tortoise is the best choice. 

“Why don’t I call it Ebenezer?” (I was thinking that would match Ezra.)

“We’re calling it Psalms because I want you to praise the Lord.”

“I can praise the Lord if it’s called Ebenezer.”

“But you won’t, will you? You’ll say you forgot. What about the time I bought you that 3-D postcard of the garden of Gethsemane? You said that would help you think about the Lord and I caught you singing ‘On Ilkley Moor Baht ’at’”

“Alright then,” I sulked. “We’ll call it Psalms.” (31)

And the girl reads to the tortoise from the Psalms everyday. The tortoise seems to be fulfilling its purpose. She learns large chunks of the Bible and she wins all the competitions in Sunday School. This is a funny, odd story and another one that I don’t quite know what to make of. It’s also another one where the mother and daughter seem to be, if not entirely at odds with each other, there is a lack of understanding between them. But as you can tell from the bit of dialogue, it is a very humorous story, indeed. If you are unfamiliar with the song “On Ilkley Moor Baht ’at”, you can listen to it here, and find the lyrics here. By the time worms part of the picture, I was in stitches. 

“The End of the Fairy Tale” by Maude Egerton King (1911)

A normally absent and neglectful mother, who usually leaves the care of her five-year-old daughter to her nurse, ends up putting her daughter to bed when her evening plans get cancelled at the last minute. The daughter is clearly starved for motherly attention, which made me think that the mother was selfish and self involved, but as the story goes on, there’s a suggestion that there is more to it than that. There is perhaps some sort of societal expectation that she has allowed herself to be caught up with instead of investing herself in her daughter’s life. Her husband is away in South Africa, and there is the suggestion of an affair, which takes up her attention, as a man calls at the house, interrupting her time with her daughter. I found this one both touching and sad.

“The Pictures” by Janet Frame (1951)

A mother and daughter go to the pictures. While they’re watching the film, they seem to be on the same plane, both enjoying themselves. “The little girl laughed. She clapped her hands and giggled and the woman laughed with her. They were the happiest people in the world” (50). But when they leave, the mother is thinking about having to return home to the boarding house where she lives alone with her daughter.

And the woman thought of going up stairs and putting the little girl to bed and then touching and looking at the daffodil in the window-box, it was a lovely daffodil. And looking about her and thinking the woman felt sad.

But the little girl in the pixie-cap didn’t feel sad, she was eating a paper lolly, it was greeny-blue and it tasted like peppermints. (53)

There is something so heartbreaking about this one. The disconnect between the mother and daughter in this last snapshot, compared to when they are laughing in the cinema is poignant.

“The Silver Cloak” by Winifred Holtby (1937)

A seamstress, Annie Moorcroft is given a silver cloak from one of her clients. On her way home, she imagines the effect the dress will have on her life. As a young woman of 36, who still looks young, she feels the dress will help her look good for when men come to court her daughter, Katie, who is just coming of age. But when Annie shows the garment to her daughter, Katie seems downcast and sulky, and isn’t nearly as excited as Annie expected her to be. It occurs to Annie that her daughter is jealous of her. Jealous of the dress.

I have mixed feelings about this story, because I just think of all the times that mother sacrifice more than they should. The incident with the garment could have been a learning experience for the daughter, who in my opinion is a bit of a brat. Mothers deserve to have nice clothes too! The daughter is always well dressed, in clothes her mother has made for her. She does not need another dress, and the silver cloak was given to the mother, after all. But I think the story is meant to point to the small sacrifices mothers make for their children every day. 

“History Again Repeats Itself” by E.M. Delafield (1929)

Theodosia invites her friend Alex, and two others to her parents’ house for Christmas. While Alex is not her boyfriend, they have been going around together for the past year. Theodosia has come to think of him as more than a friend though, she has not yet admitted it to herself. Upset at seeing Alex get along so well with Marjorie, one of the other friends invited for Christmas, Theodosia confronts him. She accuses him of being in love with Marjorie, and she surprises both of them when she ends up in tears. Her mother saves Theodosia from embarrassment. Theodosia and her mother do not quite understand each other, they are not quite at odds, but Theodosia does think she knows better than dear mummy. Theodosia is young and perhaps not quite so worldly, or superior, as she had thought. I appreciated how her mother quietly, and firmly guided her daughter when she saw she needed help, but otherwise leaves Theodosia to figure things out for herself. E.M. Delafield’s writing is always a treat. Full of humour and observant of her characters’ flaws, while displaying the foibles that often result with wit and understanding.

“Mothers and Daughters” by Frances Gray Patton (1952) 

Emily and her sister, Belle, chat by the fire one cold March evening while waiting for Emily’s daughter, Laura, to come home. Feeling comfortable, Emily confesses that her daughter is remote, cold, and hostile towards her (84). She immediately regrets saying something so horrible about her own daughter. But Belle brushes it off. Then Laura comes home and Belle sees firsthand how Laura is with her mother. Once Laura has left the room, Belle admits,

“I see what you mean. She doesn’t care for you very much at the moment. You’ll have to trust to time.” She smiled ruefully. “It’s like Mama used to say when we were broken up about something that couldn’t be helped. ‘Don’t struggle, lie down and let the waves beat over you.” (96)

Not bad advice, but Emily feels the need to confront her daughter and what results is enlightening. I had to share this quotation, because I think the author does a great job of showing the gap in sentiment that mothers of teenage daughters must bridge.

“As soon as the conversation gets meaningful you make a wisecrack. You retreat. Why, you haven’t even noticed how beautiful the world is tonight.” She took her mother by the arm and drew her to the window. “Look!”

Emily looked. Her house was on a hill, and across the road, where, the land began to fall away, stood an elm tree, large and symmetrical. Below the tree were rooftops of houses that seemed to form a flight of giant steps going down in the darkness. Tonight, in the ice storm, the elm was a great sequined fan and the ridgepoles were penciled silver lines.

“Doesn’t it make you want to cry?” asked Laura.

“No,” said Emily. She felt too tired and baffled for anything but the simple truth. “Not except when I think how slick the roads will be in the morning.” (99)

This one ends on a surprisingly light note, with Emily understanding Laura’s “problem”.

“The Shadow of Kindness” by Maeve Brennan (1965)

I found this one to be touching, and a bit sad. Mrs. Bagot has sent her children off to a relatives farm for a month. 

[T]here were other things she was going to do, but these preparations, which she had already memorized and timed to the minute, still left her with nothing to do for a month but look forward, and she knew a grown woman should have more life of her own. Even if she had children, a woman should have a life of her own that would stand up when the children were out of the house for any length of time. She knew that. It was not right to let yourself get so lost in your children that you could find no trace of yourself when they were gone. What would she do when they grew up? Of course, it was silly to think of it; not silly—morbid. She was letting her imagination run away with her. She would make herself a cup of tea and cheer herself up. The tea would cheer her up. Still, she did not move. She continued to stand by the big window looking out into her garden. (103-104)

It’s the first day without her children and she is at a loss, and more than a little lonely, but she finds comfort in an unexpected place.

I especially enjoyed the beautiful descriptions of the garden and the interiors of Mrs. Bagot’s house. The children’s bedroom come alive when Mrs. Bagot is confronted with the unfamiliar, or should I say, she sees the familiar from a different perspective. And there is a dear dog, a white terrier named Bennie, a big orange cat named Rupert, and small black cat named Minnie. We know Bennie is a very good dog, because he doesn’t kick up a fuss when greedy Rupert checks Bennie’s bowl for stray morsels of food. A story with a dog is just about guaranteed to be a favourite of mine, as this one is.

“Rose-Coloured Teacups” by A.S. Byatt (1987)

This story is like a snapshot in time, or times. I normally love description, but the large chunk at the beginning of this one was a bit much for me. I felt my attention wain by the second page, and I fear if I had come across this story in a magazine I would have moved on. However, I did appreciate how Byatt showed how people see their experience of a place as being the definitive one. Again, pointing out the disconnect between the generations and the gaps that must be bridged for understanding to be realised. 

“Love is Not a Pie” by Amy Bloom (1993)

I stood and looked and then backed out of the bedroom. They hadn’t moved, the three of them breathing deeply, in unison. What was that, I thought, what did I see? I wanted to go back and take another look, to see it again, to make it disappear, to watch them carefully, until I understood. (139)

The story begins with the funeral of Ellen and Lizzie’s mother, but much of it is set during summers past spent at their cabin. Told from Ellen’s perspective as a young girl, I think Bloom does a great job of capturing the thought process of a child when they have seen something they don’t quite understand. This one is sad, but also really lovely.

“The Battle-Field” by Phyllis Bottome (1934)

Thirty-five-year old, Madeline Writtle has always been delicate, but after her sister’s death she becomes worryingly ill. Eventually, she winds up in a sanatorium for consumption, where the doctor works as much on her worryingly co-dependent relationship with her mother, as he does on building up her physical health. The writing remains fairly light throughout, but the undertone is quite dark. 

“I Stand Here Ironing” by Tillie Olsen (1961)

A woman ruminates about her daughter Emily’s upbringing after receiving a call from the girl’s school. The mother has to go out to work when Emily is eight months old, the father has left, and the mother is 19. Later, Emily gets the measles and the mother is encouraged to send her daughter to a place where she can recuperate, which sounds more like a prison for disadvantaged children than a rest home.

It took us eight months to get her released home, and only the fact that she gained back so little of her seven lost pounds convinced the social worker. 

 I used to try to hold and love her after she came back, but her body would stay stiff, and after a while she'd push away. She ate little. Food sickened her, and I think much of life too. Oh she had physical lightness and brightness, twinkling by on skates, bouncing like a ball up and down up and down over the jump rope, skimming over the hill; but these were momentary. (173-174)

Heartbreaking. Moving. And I can imagine that a lot of single mothers at this time without independent means were forced to make similarly heart-wrenching choices. 

“The Stepmother” by Mary Arden (1928)

A teacher at a boarding school for girls becomes engaged. She settles down to her new life with her husband, and all seems well enough. But life is complicated by her stepdaughter, who she only meets after she has married the girl’s father, and does not want to have anything to do with her stepmother. Then a little girl who was a favourite of hers at the boarding school writes asking if she can stay for part of the school holiday. This story is about the complicated role of being a stepmother.

“My Mother” by Jamaica Kincaid (1983)

Short, poetic, and figurative. The mother-daughter relationship is mythologised in this powerful collection of vignettes. At first, I thought this was going to be my least favourite story in the collection. And then I read this…

My mother reached out to pass a hand over my head, a pacifying gesture, but I laughed and, with great agility, stepped aside. I let out a horrible roar, then a self-pitying whine. I had grown big, but my mother was bigger, and that would always be so. (201)

How well Kincaid has captured the complicated struggle between the urge to have agency over one’s own life and the power of one’s mother. Then this part just about bowled me over…

My mother, while caressing my chin and cheeks, said some words of comfort to me because we had never been apart before. She kissed me on the forehead and turned and walked away. I cried so much my chest heaved up and down, my whole body shook at the sight of her back turned towards me, as if I had never seen her back turned towards me before. I started to make plans to get off the boat, but when I saw that the boat was encased in a large green bottle, as if it were about to decorate a mantelpiece, I fell asleep, until I reached my destination, the new island. When the boat stopped, I got off and I saw a woman with feet exactly like mine, especially around the arch of the instep. Even though the face was completely different from what I was used to, I recognised this woman as my mother. We greeted each other at first with great caution and politeness, but as we walked along, our steps became one, and as we talked, our voices became one voice, and we were in complete union in every other way. What peace came over me then, for I could not see where she left off and I began, or where I left off and she began. (203-204)

She does not tell how she trusted this mother with a changed face, after her mother turned her back on her. Alas, there is hope here. Hope of new beginnings, understanding, and love, despite all the hurt that gets intertwined over time.

Admittedly, I was unable to enjoy this collection with the same abandon as I did Stories for Summer and Days By the Pool, which came out last year in the British Library Women Writers collection. The mother-daughter relationship is too fraught with landmines to really get comfortable for any extended period of time. But, perhaps, I am bringing too much of my own experience to my reading, and to this review. As a whole Stories for Mothers and Daughters was less fraught with emotion than I was expecting, I held my tears until the final story, but I suspect if you are a mother or a daughter you will find these stories either more or less relatable than I did. There is some fabulous writing in this collection. I suspect Jamaica Kincaid’s “My Mother” is one that will take up residence in my thoughts and the depths of my heart for some time.

Come to this book for the writing. Stay for the emotional exorcism. And if you are not a mother or a daughter, this book provides a glimpse of the many complexities of mother-daughter relationships. 

Thank you to British Library Publishing for kindly sending me a copy of Stories for Mothers and Daughters for review. As always, all opinions on the book are my own.

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56 Weeks with Nancy Drew - The Secret of Red Gate Farm - Part 2/2

Week 6, Book 6

Welcome to the 56 Weeks with Nancy Drew series! If you are new here, welcome. You can find my introductory post to this series here. Please note I will be including plot spoilers in this review series. I explain my reasoning at the start of this post. This is Part Two in a two part discussion. You can find Part One here.

Originally published in 1931 and written by Mildred Wirt, I am continuing my review of the revised edition of The Secret of Red Gate Farm, published in 1961 and pictured above.

Nancy Drew, Code Breaker

Unlike in the other books, where Nancy trots out skills she already possesses, in this one we see Nancy acquire skills she didn’t previously possess. Seeing Nancy willing to try something and—if not fail at it—do it poorly, is something I think all children (and maybe some of us adults) can relate to and find encouragement from.

One thing Nancy hasn’t done before is milking a cow. There is a humorous scene with Bess trying to milk Primrose the cow, followed by this brief description of Nancy’s experience.

    “It’s no trick at all!” Bess insisted. “Give me that pail and I’ll show you just how it’s done.”

    Reuben handed over the bucked, and Bess marched determinedly up to the cow. 

    “Nice bossy,” she murmured, giving the animal a timid pat on the neck.

    The cow responded with a suspicious look and flirt of her tail. As Bess set down the milking stool, the cow kicked it over.

    Bess sprang back in alarm. “You can’t expect me to milk a vicious cow!” she exclaimed.

    […]

    After a great deal of maneuvering, Bess succeeded in handling the whole procedure to the satisfaction of Primrose. Nancy came last, and she, too, was a bit awkward. When Reuben finally sat down to do the milking, the girls watched him with admiration. “It just takes practice,” he said smiling. (75)

Finally, something Nancy doesn’t excel at straight out of the gate! Yes, Bess makes a bit of an ass of herself, and though we don’t hear how George gets on, we expect that she wasn’t terribly good at milking either. And while Nancy isn’t turned into a figure of fun in this scene, like Bess is, we do find out that she was awkward too. Not a description we have come to expect from our elegant and capable girl detective! This realistic snapshot of what it’s like to try something for the first time is refreshing, to say the least. 

The other skill that Nancy tries her hand at is codebreaking. Coming across what she believes is a code, Nancy shows it to her father and asks if he can figure it out (27). 

    “I wish I could, but it looks like a complicated one. It would probably take me days to figure out what these numbers stand for. Why don’t you work on it yourself?”

    “I don’t know too much about codes,” Nancy declared, “but perhaps I can learn!” 

    “I have a book you might use,” her father offered. “It may not help much, since every code is different.” (28)

 

Carson goes on to explain some of the features that codes do have in common and encourages his daughter by saying it will be “a good test for your sleuthing mind” (28).

After dinner, Carson retires to his study while Nancy goes to her bedroom. She reads the book that evening and cracks a chunk of the code in just over two hours! There was something about this scene that sparked my imagination as a child. In part, I believe it’s because Nancy is acting like an average teenager, going to her dad for help. He doesn’t have the answer, instead he provides her with the tools to work on the problem herself. Then she goes to her bedroom, reads the book, puts her mind to the problem, and finds success. 

I was obsessed with codes after reading this book, and had no end of fun making up my own written codes. Codebreaking is an interest that has stayed with me to this day. Although, as an adult, I am more interested in reading about codebreaking than in doing it myself!

At first, Nancy only figures out part of the code. It is weeks later when a random happening gives her the idea to look at the code in a different way. George gets bitten by a snake on their way back to the farm from an afternoon of swimming. Nancy provides on the spot first aid, the doctor is called, and George quickly recovers. It is seeing the shape of the snake on the ground as it slithers away after it has bitten George that gives Nancy the idea the squiggle in the code could stand for the word “snake”. That incident provided the key Nancy needed to solve the remainder of the code (136). Thank goodness she decided to take the afternoon off of sleuthing, otherwise she might never have cracked the code!

It’s this balance between the intellectual and practical that makes Nancy Drew a good detective. She is willing to turn her brain to something new and daunting, like codebreaking, but when she doesn’t find instant success she doesn’t let that deter her. Even as she takes time out to go swimming or help our with farm chores, she continues to turn the case over in her mind.

Other things that make this book special

Along with codebreaking, this book has a few other things about it that I loved as a child. And strangely, all of them start with the letter C. Well, sort of. 

This book is set in the countryside. Now, I know lot of Nancy Drew books are set in the country and many of their climactic moments take place outside. This one is different because it is set on a farm as opposed to a ranch, mansion, or inn. While all of those make for great settings, they also feel a bit more remote. In The Secret at Red Gate Farm, Nancy and her friends do things I had experienced myself as a child, like exploring the surrounding fields and visiting the local swimming hole. This isn’t a fancy setting. Yes, Nancy and her friends are paying guests at the farm, but they also take part in farm life and the pace of this book reflects this slower lifestyle.

The setting does have one special feature. There is a cave that Jo suggests they explore. 

    “You must have explored it before this!” Nancy exclaimed.

    “Oh, yes, of course, though I’ll admit I never did very thoroughly, and I haven’t been near the cave for years. As a child I was always afraid of the place—it looked so dark and gloomy. Lately I’ve been to busy working around the farm.” (45)

What could be more mysterious than an unexplored cave? Good question. How about if that cave were located on land being rented by a cult called the Black Snake Colony?! 

    “I’m not sure what they do,” Joanne admitted. “We’ve never even spoken to any members. I supposed they believe in living an outdoor life.”

    “You can live that way without joining a nature cult,” George said dryly. “I suppose they dance when the dew is on the grass and such nonsense!”

    “Believe it or not they do dance!” Joanne laughed. “But only nights when the moon is out. I’ve seen them here in the moonlight. It’s an eerie sight. They wear white robes and flit around waving their arms. They even wear masks!” (66)

You just know that Nancy and her friends are going to go undercover to find out what the mysterious group does at their meetings. (“Undercover” is the “sort of” C word, I mentioned above. Haha!)

And the thing they find in the cave when they go undercover with the cult also starts with the letter C. It’s counterfeit money. Loads of it!

    Nancy’s first impression on entering was that the chamber appeared to be a cross between a printing shop and a United States mint.

    “Counterfeiters!” she thought excitedly.

    Hand presses stood about and several engraved plates had been left on a table. Various chemicals and inks were in evidence. Neat stacks of paper money lined one wall and other bills were scattered carelessly on the floor. Never in all her life had Nancy seen so much money! (150)

This makes for thrilling reading when you are a child. Imagine sneaking into a cave under the guise of being a cult member, and finding yourself surrounded with all of that counterfeit money and realizing these people are even more dangerous that you had thought, and all the while you are wondering if you and your friends will manage to escape before one of you is asked to take of your mask! Eek!

The last thing isn’t special to this book, or even to this series, as it turns out. I can’t remember the title of the first Nancy Drew book I came across. What I remember is the magical feeling of seeing my own name on the cover of a book.  My full name is Carolyn. Seeing my name on the cover of a book had a powerful effect on me. I knew these books were for me. They literally had my name on them! And in some small way, it felt like someone out there was telling me to dream big. Because if that Carolyn could be a writer, why couldn’t I?

I know now that Carolyn Keene is a pseudonym. Although, we do have Mildred Wirt to thank for many of them, it was a number of women and men who wrote these books. I don’t think it would have mattered if I had known that then, because that just means someone chose my name to put on these books. That in itself is special. It is to me, anyway.

What I don’t love about this book

I’m sure I have said this before, but in case I have not… The 56 titles in the Nancy Drew Mystery Stories series published by Grosset & Dunlap are of their time. They were published from 1930 to 1979 and even the revised texts editions contain content that is, at best problematic, at worst racist, classist, and at times, they manage to be sexist too. So while I read these books as a child, I would hope that the parents of children reading these books now would have conversations with them about what they are reading, pointing out some of the language and ideas that are best left in the past. I get great enjoyment out of reading these books and other vintage children's books. I think reading older books is a great way for younger generations to see how far we have come in some ways and also to highlight the things that haven't changed enough.

In this book, the word “Oriental” is used to other a person of Asian descent. Likewise, the word “Orient” is often paired with words like “mystic” or “exotic” to similar effect, placing both Asian peoples and cultures as opposite to Western. It makes it worse that the woman described as “Oriental-looking” is one of the baddies, placing her in opposition to our heroine.

The other problem with this book is that Nancy gets rescued twice. If you read my blog post for The Mystery at Lilac Inn you already know that this grates on me. I would prefer it if Nancy was not positioned as being either helpless or thoughtless and in need of a man to look after her. She has the tools at her disposal to look after herself. I don’t know why we can’t just leave her to it.

There isn’t the space to discuss these topics here, but in future, once 56 Weeks with Nancy Drew is at an end, I hope to do some posts entirely devoted to these topics and others. 

Favourite quotation

There is one line with the word cahoots in this book, but I cannot for the life of me find it. I’m thinking it was close to the end and I was so taken up by the story that I forgot to mark it down, but I cannot even be sure of that, so I will have to settle for sharing my second favourite quotation. 

    George took Nancy aside and said excitedly, “A little white ago a man phoned here and asked for Miss Fayne. When I answered, he said, ‘Listen, miss, tell that snoopy friend of yours to stop her snooping, or she’ll be sorry!’ Then he hung up the phone without giving his name.” (43)

So much of that is hilarious, but what the baddie said is the funniest. Good thing he said it over the phone, because how could anyone issue that threat with a straight face?!

56 Weeks with Nancy Drew - The Secret of Red Gate Farm - Part 1/2

Week 6, Book 6

Welcome to the 56 Weeks with Nancy Drew series! If you are new here, welcome. You can find my introductory post to this series here. Please note I will be including plot spoilers in this review series. I explain my reasoning at the start of this post. I should add that my discussion of The Secret of Red Gate Farm is a two-parter. Once Part Two goes live, you will be able to find a link to it here. 

Edition pictured: Revised text (20 chapters, 178 pages)

Cover illustrated by: Bill Gillies

Revised text publication date: 1961

Original text publication date: 1931

My edition printed: approx. 1973

Ghostwriter: Mildred A. Wirt Benson

Editors: Edna Stratemeyer Squier & Harriet Stratemeyer Adams

Revised by: Lynn Ealer

Setting: River Heights, Riverside Heights (a few miles away from River Heights) & Red Gate Farm (about 10 miles from Round Valley)

Originally published in 1931 and written by Mildred Wirt, I will be reviewing the revised text edition of The Secret of Red Gate Farm, published in 1961 and pictured above. 

This one opens with Nancy Drew and her friends, Bess Marvin and George Fayne, rushing to catch their train after a day of shopping. On the way, they discuss how the clerk in the perfume shop seemed reluctant to sell a bottle of Blue Jade perfume to Bess (1). Always on the lookout for a new mystery to solve, Nancy suspects the woman deliberately raised the price of the perfume (2). Bess, eager to smell her new perfume, opens the bottle, accidentally dousing Nancy in the stuff. Then one of their fellow passengers faints (6) and while Nancy gets the woman some water, a man approaches her. “Any word from the Chief?” Seeing Nancy’s bewildered expression he apologizes, “But that perfume — Well, never mind!” (8)

The fainting woman, whose name is Jo, is on the way to the city to find a job. Her grandmother is about to lose her farm if they can’t come up with some money (12). Being the kind person she is, Nancy drives Jo to her job interview. At the office building, Nancy overhears a suspicious phone call. The man explains he was just getting stock market quotations (18). One peek at the note the man was making, is enough to tell Nancy he was lying. She copies down the note and the mystery takes off from there (19).

This one takes Nancy, Bess, and George with their new friend Jo into the countryside to uncover the mystery at Red Gate Farm. Nancy cracks a code, goes undercover with a nature cult, and solves one of the “most baffling cases […] the United States Government has ever had” (174) and that coming from an agent of the Secret Service. Not bad, Nancy! She still has time to get caught in a storm, get her car stuck, get it unstuck, do a grocery run, whip up some costumes, learn to milk a cow, offer first aid to three people, hunt down a runaway cow, catch some rays down at the local swimming hole, get accused of using counterfeit money, get rescued not once, but twice, eat seventeen meals, a snack, one chocolate nut sundae topped with whipped cream, and use the word “phony” at least four times (64, 88, 106, 117). Which, by the way, is four times too many. Unless you are in fact reading The Catcher in the Rye aloud. 

Interesting physical characteristics

I noticed something interesting about the edition that I have, which differs from most of the other revised text editions I own. On the copyright page, opposite the table of contents page, is this notice.

    This new story for today’s readers is based on the original of the same title.

I assume they stopped printing this sometime in 1973, because I have two copies of The Hidden Staircase, which have The Double Jinx Mystery followed by The Nancy Drew Cookbook listed on the back cover, both of which were first published in 1973, one copy has the above notice on the same page, the other copy does not. Incidentally, the one that has the notice is different from my other Nancy Drew books in that it has brick red ink on the top page edges, while all the rest are either a midnight blue or have no ink mark at all. Now, I am so happy that I kept both, despite my husband’s suggestion that I only keep one copy of each of the 56 titles. Not that I would ever accept such bad advice!

The other thing that is special about this book is that it is the first one I have shared with cover art by Bill Gillies. Growing up, I only had the Rudy Nappi covers, so while the Bill Gillies depiction is not the face of Nancy as I imagine her, I do think his covers have a certain something. When I look at the Bill Gillies cover I think Nancy has an old Hollywood glamour about her and a certain sophistication that the slightly more pared down version of Nancy lacks. I love the loser curled hair and her clothes have a more feminine, if less practical look about them. 

One cover in particular, The Ringmaster’s Secret, reminds me of Grace Kelly. Surprisingly, this artwork was done by Rudy Nappi and dates from the 1953 hardbacks with wraparound dust wrappers. The pictorial hardcover with this artwork was in print from 1962, though my edition likely dates from 1973, the last year this cover was in print. In others, like this one, I think Nancy has a whisper of Marilyn Monroe about her. Again, this is not how I imagine Nancy to look, but it is fun to see how different artists have imagined her for the various titles and for the time in which the cover was made. 

Time of year

We have Bess to thank for letting us know what time of year it is. At the start of the book when the friends rush to the train station after their shopping trip, she exclaims,

    “And this would be one of July’s hottest days!” (2)

Funny how Nancy’s eighteenth year seems to have so many summers. I guess, summers do seem longer and more frequent when you’re that age, don’t they? 

Timeline

Jokes aside, the timeline in this book differs from the other titles thus far in this series. This one is set over a summer. In The Secret at Shadow Ranch, Nancy and her friends were supposed to be visiting Shadow Ranch for the summer and they may have done, but the mystery is set during the first eight days of that trip. With this book we get seven consecutive days, then an indeterminate amount of time passes, followed by another eight days, then another week goes by and the conclusion comes the week after that when Nancy’s father comes to visit. 

There are still some days when way too many events to be believable are crammed in, specifically near the climax. But overall, I think this book does a better job at maintaining a believable timeline. There is one day when Nancy stays home and works on the code and there are other days when the girls don’t do much more than watch the hillside for cult members who fail to make an appearance. That said, this book still manages to feel pacy with Nancy gathering clues throughout the book instead of having all of the big reveals at the end, which was one of the problems I had with The Mystery at Lilac Inn.

I remember this one!

I’ve been getting the most lovely comments on my #56WeekswithNancyDrew Instagram posts. A few people have mentioned their fond memories of first picking up such and such a title. These comments warm my heart. They also have made me feel a bit jealous! All of the books I have read so far for this project have been rereads, but not one of them could I remember reading for the first time. I wondered if it was because these books feel so much a part of me. I read and reread the same titles over and over again to the point that I thought I had obliterated any memory of my first impressions. 

My experience with The Secret of Red Gate Farm has been different. At one point I teared up because the memory of my having read a certain passage for the first time was so vivid it was as though I could reach through the layers of time and grab ahold of it. It was very odd. And now, such as memories are, I cannot capture that same experience again. When I think back, I am only recreating the memory and that feeling of sitting in my childhood bedroom with the sun coming through the windows and solving the mystery alongside Nancy and her friends is slipping beyond my grasp.  

In part two, I will (mostly) be putting nostalgia aside while attempting to answer the question: What is it that makes this book different from the others? I hope you will join me tomorrow!

56 Weeks with Nancy Drew - The Mystery at Lilac Inn

Week 4, Book 4

Welcome to the 56 Weeks with Nancy Drew series! If you are new here, welcome. You can find my introductory post to this series here. Please note I will be including plot spoilers in this review series. I explain my reasoning at the start of this post.

Edition pictured: Revised text (20 chapters, 180 pages)

Cover illustrated by: Rudy Nappi

Revised text publication date: 1961

Original text publication date: 1930

My edition printed: approx. 1977

Ghostwriter: Mildred A. Wirt Benson

Editor: Harriet Otis Smith

Revised by: Patricia Doll

Setting: River Heights and Lilac Inn in Benton (down the river from River Heights)

Originally published in 1930 and written by Mildred Wirt, I will be reviewing the revised edition of The Mystery at Lilac Inn, published in 1961 and pictured above. With the help of a very informative site, series-books.com, I have been having fun dating the printing of my Nancy Drew books, or at least, narrowing down the years. This cover of The Mystery at Lilac Inn with the strip of yellow at the top was in print from 1974-1986. The back cover of mine lists the books in this series up to book 54, Strange Message in the Parchment, which was published in 1977. Which means my edition likely dates from 1977. Fun, right? 

There are a lot of online resources with a wealth of knowledge on Nancy Drew books, in specific, and other vintage children’s series and Jennifer White’s website is one of them. If you are at all interested in learning about collecting Nancy Drew books, I can recommend her site and her blog, of which, I have only scratched the surface. She has a wealth of knowledge to share!

Now, let’s curl up with a nourishing hot chocolate and get into The Mystery at Lilac Inn…

Nancy Drew and her good friend, Helen Corning, paddle from River Heights along the river to visit Emily Willoughby and her aunt at Lilac Inn in Benton. Emily and her fiancé, Dick Farnham, have bought the inn and are planning to run it together. Emily has asked Nancy and Helen to be bridesmaids at her wedding, so the girls are anticipating lots of chat about wedding plans (Lilac 2). Along the way, Nancy finds out she has a double walking around River Heights (1), their canoe capsizes (2), and the closest male doesn’t come to their rescue (4). Helen is indignant, but Nancy laughs the incident off. Although, Nancy is curious about what could have upset their canoe.

Once at the inn Emily gives them a tour of the property and while Dick is away in New York working on publicity for the inn, they meet Dick’s best man, “handsome, well-built” Sergeant John McBride (5). It’s clear that something is bothering Emily and when one of the gardeners tells her he is quitting, it’s the last straw. Emily confides that a mysterious enemy is trying to jinx Lilac Inn. Reports of a ghost, a stolen lilac tree, a record player playing with no one around, and a forced window are enough to put Emily’s nerves in tatters. Thank goodness, Nancy is on the scene, and to think Emily was planning to keep her problems to herself!

What follows is a case of stolen identity, stolen diamonds, and stolen… well, let’s try to keep that part under wraps! 

In this one, Nancy uncovers her impersonator, gets accused of stealing, discovers a secret passage, learns a lot about lilacs, comes up with a few wild theories that all somehow all fit together, and she still has time to go skin diving, discuss bridesmaid dresses, eat 13 meals, attend a steak cookout and singalong, and flirt with Sergeant John McBride. She may not be engaged like every other young woman is in this book, but she sure isn’t too busy solving mysteries to appreciate when a good-looking man enjoys her company!

Time of year

In my last post, I argued that The Bungalow Mystery must have been set during the last week of July. I had a lot of proofs to back up my theory and I was very confident that I was correct within a week or so either way and I am still certain I got it right. So perhaps you can imagine how excited I was to read the following at the end of that book.

    Nancy suddenly felt a sense of loneliness and realized it was because her work on the case was at an end. Would another mystery come her way to solve? she wondered. And it did. In less than a week, Nancy was facing up to the challenge of The Mystery at Lilac Inn. (Bungalow 179; emphasis added)

That’s my job figuring out when the next one is set done and dusted, or so I thought. Imagine my confusion when I came across this passage at the start of The Mystery of Lilac Inn.

    The next second something rammed the canoe violently. The impact capsized the craft, hurling Nancy and Helen into the chilly May water. (2; emphasis added)

Silly me. Of course, Nancy wouldn’t be visiting a place called Lilac Inn when the lilacs weren’t in bloom! This book had to be set in May. And so, as I pointed out when we were discussing when The Hidden Staircase was set, we have to accept that time is fluid in these books and we have to suspend our disbelief. Getting annoyed at the utter disregard for reader expectation and intelligence is not going to help anything, or so I remind myself!

The Secret of the Old Clock took place over 11 days, The Hidden Staircase is set over eight, The Bungalow Mystery is set over six days, and the main action in this one takes place over seven days. That’s a total of 32 days and if Nancy continued with an average of eight days per mystery with no breaks in between her eighteenth year would have 448 days in it, because Nancy doesn’t age in this series. Regular timelines do not apply here.

Okay, so on the upside, we know for a certainty that this book is set in May when lilacs are in bloom. 

    When the canoe came abreast of the dock, Nancy secured it to a post. The girls hopped out and started up the path that led to the inn. On both sides of the path were groves of lilac trees which displayed a profusion of blooms, from creamy white to deep purple. (5)

What a good thing Nancy and Helen aren’t visiting Lilac Inn during August, as I had expected them to be! By then all of the lilac blooms would be long gone.

Location

    Nancy and Helen said good-by and paddled off upstream. The Angus River, a tributary of the Muskoka, was banked on either side with dense shrubbery, willow trees, and wild flowers.

    “We’re almost to Benton,” Nancy said. “The old inn should be just beyond the next bend.” (2)

The Lilac Inn and the town of Benton is close enough to River Heights that Nancy and Helen are able to paddle there by canoe in a short amount of time. We know this because along the way, they pass by their friend, Doris Drake, weeding a flower garden at her home along the riverbank. From Doris, they find out that Nancy’s double is walking around River Heights. 

They come to this conclusion when Doris says, “My friend Phyl told me on the phone just half an hour ago that she’d talked with you, Nancy, at the Elite Drug Store in River Heights” (1). While Doris is surprised to see Nancy and Helen paddling to her spot on the river within half an hour of being spotted in River Heights, she doesn’t automatically assume Phyl’s claim that she talked to Nancy to be incorrect. When Nancy says that it couldn’t have been her, they were paddling at the time, Helen jokes, “'You must have a double, Nancy. Better watch out!'” (1).

They manage to arrive at Lilac Inn before lunch, and that’s with stoping to chat with Doris, capsizing their canoe, and doing a quick underwater investigation to look for what caused the collision.

Lilac Inn is on the water and has its own dock, as we found out earlier and Nancy and Helen are staying in one of the new cottages.

    John carried their bags, as Emily led the way along a shrubbed path which opened onto the spacious lawn surrounding Lilac Inn. Helen and Nancy looked with admiration at the historic hotel, erected in Revolutionary times.

    "Here are the new guest cottages," Emily said, as they reached a group of twelve trim white units.

"And this one is where you'll stay." (6)

Later we get a more detailed view of the inn itself.

    The girls went to the front of the inn, a two-story clapboard building with a one-level wing on either side. All around it were lilac trees and other flowering bushes. Nancy and Helen mounted the wide steps and entered the center hall. Its paneled walls, old staircase, and beautiful cut-glass chandelier made them feel as though they had stepped back into an earlier century. (7)

It sounds like a beautiful place, or it will be, once Nancy uncovers the person who is causing all of the disturbances!

Thoughts on The Mystery at Lilac Inn

I’m going to confess, while I enjoyed this book, I found that when I reached the end I still had no idea about what I wanted to write about. As I had the opposite problem with the first three books in the series, I found myself wondering why. Sure, it might simply have been a case of me feeling overwhelmed, as I often do when faced with a task. But what if my lack of inspiration had nothing to do with me? Blaming something other than myself for my lack of ideas, there’s something can get on board with!

So I got to thinking about all of the reasons I love The Bungalow Mystery. There’s a car chase, which I enjoyed and remember enjoying immensely as a child. But beyond that, there were more sinister characters, more intrigue, and it felt like Nancy was putting herself in more dangerous situations. Yes, there were a ton of coincidences and Carson Drew’s current case just happened to tie in with Nancy’s, but doesn’t it always? Not in this one, you will be surprised to find out. Although, one of the baddies does impersonate Nancy in a bid to get back at Carson who proved she was guilty of check forgery and was sent to prison because of it (163).

Anyway, here are some of my issues with this one.

Nancy lacks agency

She still runs towards danger instead of from it. There are plenty of screams, cries, and crashes in this one. I counted eight occurrences where a loud sound interrupted a scene (9, 15, 42, 77, 82, 134, 153, 170), one of which is when Nancy herself stifles a scream when she sees a grotesque shape emerge from the water when she is out on the grounds alone at night (153). No shame there! We all get startled sometimes, Nancy.

However, on two occasions Nancy is in a tight place and is quickly saved by the police instead of solving the problem herself, as she was capable of doing in the first three books.

    She knew it would be difficult to get out of the muddy ditch. “Well, I’ll have to try,” she decided. “Here goes!”

    She tried to rock the car gently back and forth to gain momentum. The right tires spun crazily and sank lower into the mire. 

    Nancy tried again. No use. She feared it might be some time before a care would come along in this deserted area. Finally she decided to search for some objects to force under the right wheels for traction.

    Just then, Nancy heard an automobile approaching. “Thank goodness!” she murmured a moment later. “A State Police car.” (36-37)

This first occurrence feels innocent enough. Nancy doesn’t have a chance to get her car out of the ditch herself, because a State Police car shows up on the scene almost immediately. Unlikely, but fine. We come to accept that in Nancy Drew Land, pleasant police officers appear on the scene just when we need them.

The scene that bothered me was this one.

    She was lying on the cabin floor where she had been thrown, and was trying to loosen the ropes which bound her.

    Nancy glanced around the tiny cabin. It had two bunks, a table, and a chair. “Even if I could work myself free, there’s no escape route,” she thought. (162)

I’m sorry. Didn’t we just find out in the book before this that a detective friend of Nancy’s father showed her how to hold her hands when someone was tying her up, so she could slip free after? Yes. Yes, we did (Bungalow 125). And we saw her put that knowledge to the test.

    Just then Nancy thought she had found the trick to freeing her hands, but a moment later she sighed in discouragement. The robe still bound her wrists.

    […]

    Suddenly Nancy felt the rope which chaffed her wrists slacken. (130)

But in The Mystery at Lilac Inn Nancy seems to have lost that knowledge. Perhaps The Bungalow Mystery happens in the future and not in the past as the order of these books would lead us to believe? Okay, I’ll put that can of worms aside for now.

    Until now, Nancy had not fully believed that her captors would let her perish. But she was left bound hand and foot, aboard a sinking vessel!

    Suddenly Nancy sniffed the acrid smell of smoke—the fire was spreading! She screamed for help until her throat was hoarse. Then, about to faint, Nancy heard an answering shout, and the sound of a boat puling up outside the porthole.

    “Oh, thank goodness,” she breathed fervently.

    Shortly, two men in River Police Patrol uniforms hurried into the cabin. They quickly untied Nancy and carried her on deck. (Lilac 171)

Instead of solving the mystery and saving herself at the climax, Nancy gets captured by the gang and uncovers most of the mystery because the big baddie is a Chatty Cathy. Then when Nancy is left to die on a sinking boat with an engine fire, she screams for someone to come help her instead of reserving her energy to save herself. What a disappointment! 

What happened to the Nancy who broke out of a closet in The Secret of the Old Clock, or shed her bonds in The Bungalow Mystery, or drove so fast in The Hidden Staircase that she didn’t dare take her eyes off the road? Does Nancy need a vacation? Or is all the talk of her friends’ impending nuptials bringing her down?

Because that is another thing…

Every young woman is engaged to be married

We have already established that Emily is engaged to Dick Farnham. Listen to how Emily introduces Helen and Nancy to Dick’s best man.

    “Now don’t go making up to my friends, John,” Emily teased. “Helen is engaged to Jim Archer, who has a position with an oil company overseas, and Nancy—well, she’s mighty busy these days.” (5-6)

Emily isn’t wrong. Nancy has to solve 56 mysteries before she turns 19. So, yes. She is very busy. But consider this bit from the end of the book at a party on the eve of Emily’s wedding.

    Later, as Nancy, Helen, and Emily were talking, the two older girls suddenly stopped speaking on the subject of their forthcoming weddings. Helen said, “Goodness, Nancy, you must be tired of hearing us talk about steady partners when—”

    Nancy interrupted. Laughing gaily, she said, “Not at all. For the present, my steady partner is going to be mystery!” (180)

I love Nancy’s response here. But I am a little annoyed by how both Emily and Helen talk about Nancy’s love of solving mysteries and her lack of a “steady partner”. I don’t think there is any malicious intent here. I believe it’s a case of them accepting Nancy as she is, but at the same time not understanding how she couldn’t want what they have. 

Even the baddie of the piece is engaged, although her fiancé is nothing to write home about.

    At that moment the cabin door opened. A man Nancy had not yet seen stood there. He was tall and dark, with thin features. 

    Gay introduced him as Simon, her fiancé. “You talk too much, Gay,” he growled. (167)

 

Oh, and we find out that Gay’s sister, who is 27, is married when Gay introduces her brother-in-law (160).

Three engaged women in one book proved to be too much for me, so I did a little digging.

According to the American Census Report for 1960, “The youngest age at which fewer than half of all persons were still single was 20 for females and 23 for males.” Oh, and in 1960, “Eight in ten of all women 25 to 49 years old were married and living with their husband.”

At 18 years old without a steady boyfriend in sight, Nancy may very well have stood out among her peers. 

Which begs the question, if Nancy wants to make a career out of crime solving, why isn’t she in university studying criminology or some other related field? According to one source, (it's from Wikipedia, but the statistics come from a cited source so they might actually be correct), 35% of bachelor’s degrees were earned by women in 1960 and 10.5% of doctorates. So there goes my theory that university might not have been viewed as an acceptable option for Nancy.

Can you see Nancy settling down to a husband and children in the next couple of years? I can’t. But what bothers me is that while Nancy enjoys solving mysteries, it’s treated like her cute little quirk instead of her vocation. Why don’t these books allow Nancy a future in a field she loves? Or are we supposed to assume that Nancy is going to live in her father’s house, forever sponging off of his wealth derived from a successful career in law, while she continues to accumulate trinkets and gifts for a job well done, but not actually getting paid for her hard work and intelligence?

Perhaps, a better question is, why does this issue bother me so much? 

Let’s give Nancy, and her creators, the credit they both deserve. Because Nancy has not entirely been neglecting her education since graduating from high school. At the start of this book she has just completed a course in advanced skin diving. An article in the River Heights Evening News mentions that she finished first among the twenty in her group. Nicely done, Nancy! And guess what? She puts those newly acquired skills to use in solving this mystery. Who would have thought?! 

So, tell me. What is the one thing about Nancy Drew, or your favourite series, that irks you? What is the one thing that you are meant to overlook? But try as you might, you simply cannot! I would love to hear all of the mad, ridiculous, and worrying things about your favourite books that as a reader you are expected to smile and accept.

Favourite Quotation

So this quotation is a little random, but here goes…

    A jinx on Lilac Inn! Nancy and Helen stared at Emily in astonishment.

    “Tell us about it,” Nancy urged her friend. (11)

I can’t help but picture Nancy, with glittering eyes, gesturing that Emily should sit down, while doing a very poor job of disguising how excited she is at hearing her friend has a mystery that needs solving. Nancy’s eager anticipation radiates off the page and as a child I found it infectious. Okay, I still find that energy a bit catching!