She found her true calling after her children were grown, when she volunteered to teach an elective poetry class in the Fairfax public schools. Fifth graders were her favorite (“before the hormones start to churn”), and she not only introduced them to all the various forms of poetry (sonnets, haiku, villanelles, ballads, etc.) but soon had them writing in those forms as well. Her class was such a favorite that after the school year ended, the students sometimes persuaded her to keep meeting them during the summer. I can remember her beside the pool, surrounded by a dozen or so intent small bodies, heads bent with the concentration of creation. She was nicknamed “The Poetry Lady” and kept in touch with many of her young poets, both boys and girls, long after fifth grade.
As her own family grew, Rose shared this same inspiration and love of poetry with her four grandchildren, filling their shelves with books and their visits with collaborative poetry writing. She infused their lives with images and stories, all while encouraging their own creative spark.
In my memories of growing up, no one could play with words, toss off a pun or quip, produce a fitting quotation, or invent a fairy tale as dazzlingly as Rose. She was affectionate, emotional, and sometimes unpredictable but always hugely entertaining. We would sometimes play our own version of Scrabble, where any made-up word would be allowed if the explanation of it was both plausible and funny.
When my father retired, the two of them finally had the time to travel, and the intellectual curiosity they both shared took them to many beautiful places. On a trip to France, my mother fell and fractured a vertebra, which required a long immobilization in bed. Her sister, Adelaide, gave her a word processor that she could balance on her lap. From that moment, as my mother described it later, some new force like electricity came down her arms and out her fingers, and she found herself writing a novel about Emily Dickinson, her favorite poet.
Her sense of connection with Emily Dickinson is not surprising. Both of them were intoxicated with words and were immensely intelligent and well read, looked beneath the surfaces of things, and shared a rather dark approach to life. Like Emily, Rose MacMurray would have said her first love was poetry, not novels. Therefore, the arrival of Afternoons with Emily into her life was a surprise and a challenge that happily consumed her final four years. The night before she went into the hospital for what was expected to be a routine operation, she told me with glee that she had finished her manuscript. A few nights later, after an eerily purposeful round of phone calls to her children and a visit with Frank, she suddenly died.
After her death, my father and I took on the major responsibility of bringing her work to light. He and I had both been an integral part of the writing process: we read and commented on chapters as they emerged and fact-checked some of the historical detail. A family friend, Pat Hass, helped with sage and expert guidance, and saw that it reached the hands of our agent, Donald Maass. My two brothers were concerned and generous with their advice. But as time passed, other priorities intervened, and the prospect of publication seemed increasingly remote. My father’s health began to fail, and I began to think that we must be content with simply knowing that our mother had produced something remarkable. But Pat and Don never lost faith. And the call from Little, Brown seemed like a miraculous affirmation of Rose’s originality and talent.
A number of people have contributed to this work, and to them we are truly grateful. Emily Dickinson herself was its ever-present inspiration. Though I believe my mother truly captured Emily’s voice and spirit, I hope that scholars reading this novel will remember that Rose was primarily a fellow poet. A number of people have contributed to the work since its initial writing: Don Maass is the kind of agent authors dream about, and Helen Atsma has been a patient and sensitive editor, qualities particularly appreciated by the previously uninitiated. Carla Jablonski, Susan Leon, and Madeleine Robins offered valuable contributions. Finally, I can clearly remember my mother telling me how she would like to dedicate her book. The phrasing is mine, since I didn’t have the sense to write down her exact words. But the feelings are her own:
This book is dedicated to Pat Hass, without whose tireless friendship Afternoons with Emily would never have appeared.
And above all to Frank, with deepest love and gratitude for everything.
Afternoons with Emily Page 53