Leaving Eden

by Anne Leclaire

  First thing, Daddy married Martha Lee. At first I thought that was my fault. They’d crossed the country to come and get me, and I figured that cooped up in my daddy’s truck they must have gotten to talking and something must have clicked. Then I remembered Martha Lee going to the Glamour Day to be transformed, and the day she’d bought the tube of lipstick for herself, and I figured she must have had her own plans all along. After the initial shock, their marrying made sense to me. Like the only way my daddy could bear to be with a woman was if she didn’t look in any way like Mama. And Raylene proved right. All he did need was to be “taken in hand.” Martha Lee is a determined woman. She’s proved good at this job.

  I still have my rule book. Sometimes I get it out and reread all the things I learned from the folks in Eden.

  From Mama I learned about the power of dreams and the importance of imagination.

  From Raylene I learned the power of honesty and kindness.

  From my daddy I learned that love doesn’t have to be loud and showy to be real. And I learned the many ways it can make you weak and the ways it can make you strong.

  From Martha Lee I learned about patience. And friendship. And the amazing capacity we hold for forgiveness.

  From Lenora I learned that life is filled with mystery and miracles, like the ability to see the future in a sink full of soap. Long before the rest of us had a clue, she saw Martha Lee married to my daddy, saw it when she was washing Martha Lee’s hair on Glamour Day. And she was right about the other thing, too. I didn’t become a movie star. Or enroll in cosmetology school over in Lynchburg, though it took me a while to figure out what I wanted to do.

  After high school I went to a special school in Lynchburg and became a midwife, and now I live a life surrounded by babies, just like she saw in the suds.

  From Spy I learned about the possibility for redemption. And much, much more.

  I married Spy. He went to jail after all. They said he was guilty of manslaughter, and he served eighteen months at the county jail. I went to visit him every week regular. When he was released, the first thing he did was come see me. Goody would say I was breaking family tradition and marrying up, since Spy is a Reynolds and comes from privilege, but I don’t see it that way. I don’t think marriage is about marrying up or down. I think it’s about marrying true. We’ve both had our share of heartaches and have known tremendous sorrow. We’ve tried to make something good out of it. Spy became a counselor, so girls like Sarah would have a place to go.

  We have a baby. Mama knew what she was talking about when she said the sky’s the limit, and that’s why I named our daughter Skye. She’s delicate as Spring Azures and looks exactly like my mama.

  I learned how we heal, and about all the twigs and seeds and fungi that contribute to our healing. I learned how out of those seeds can come something as surprising and miraculous as the butterfly bush that sprang up from the ground where I’d buried the Queen of Cures.

  I learned there is a cure for everything, what ails us and what fails us.

  I learned the cure for life is to live it, to take it in. To take it all in.

  Tallie’s Book

  The Queen of Cures is Love.

  acknowledgments

  It is a truism that no author writes a book alone. This novel was written in a cradle of support, and many have helped along the way.

  My profound gratitude to the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts and to the Ragdale Foundation for providing me with time and space in which to work. The VCCA has granted me seven residences—each in the spring of the year—and it was during these months that I first fell in love with the Blue Ridge, Amherst County, and her people. This book would not exist without the Center’s astounding generosity. The Ragdale Foundation has been extraordinarily supportive over the past ten years, and it was during a lengthy residency there at my “home” on the prairie that I completed the manuscript.

  Maureen O’Neal is an editor of talent and good taste. Her enthusiasm has kept me afloat, her editorial eye has kept me true, and her phone calls have made me laugh. I am indebted as well to Gina Centrello, Kim Hovey, Allison Dickens, and the entire Ballantine sales force. It is hard to envision how a book could land in better hands.

  My agent, Deborah Schneider, has supported me with unfailing wisdom, comfort, and plain good sense. Words can’t express my gratitude.

  Jane Wood offered long-distance encouragement from London, and her over-the-top enthusiasm kept me smiling for days.

  Many others have assisted in the journey.

  The following have answered questions with patience and humor. While many helped with research, any error is mine alone.

  In Los Angeles, I owe thanks to Ozzie Cheek, Kim Myers, John Kaye, Marie Coolman, Diana Faust, and Jennifer McNair.

  In Virginia, I am indebted to Robert Reeves, Wayne Ferguson, Janine Casey, Meghan Wallace, director of the Amherst County Historical Society, Dick and Bill Wydner at the Amherst Mill, Sony Monk, and Sheila Gulley Pleasants.

  I wish to thank Jacqueline Mitchard for aiding and abetting and a generosity that knows few bounds; Margaret Moore, whose friendship is a blessing; Ann Stevens for a careful reading of the manuscript; and Jebba Handley and Ginny Reiser, who at various times fed me, held my hand, and read the work in progress. Additionally, I want to recognize the contributions of Leona Leary, Pam English, Judy Rogers, Glen Ritt, Sylvia Brown, Susan Tillett, Kelly Bancroft, and Barnstable County Assistant District Attorney Michael Trudeau. I also want to recognize Sam and Donna Faulkner.

  Lastly, I thank my mother, and Hillary, Hope, and Chris for the great gift of the unfailing love of family.

  author’s note

  Although Amherst County, Virginia, does exist, Eden and her people reside solely in the author’s imagination and bear no resemblance to any living persons or place.

  Leaving Eden

  ANNE D. LECLAIRE

  A Reader’s Guide

  A Conversation with Anne D. LeClaire

  Lynda Barry is a writer and cartoonist. She’s the author of several books, including Cruddy and One Hundred Demons.

  Lynda Barry: Where were you and what were you doing when this story first showed itself to you?

  Anne LeClaire: I was in the middle of a writing residency at the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, which is situated in a rural town in the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains. One day I went into town to get a haircut and saw a poster in the local beauty shop advertising a Glamour Day, just like the one Tallie describes. “They make you look like a star,” the owner told me as she trimmed my hair, summing up in this single sentence the magic formula. This started me thinking about the way Hollywood acts as a polestar in our culture, pulling us along in its wake, however much we deny its magnetism. I saw in my mind the young girl who would be Tallie, a teenager wanting to be transformed. It was just a glimmer, but enough to get me started, although at the time I thought it would end up as a short story. Out of this beginning—the daughter of a starstruck mother, deserted for a dream—a story was formed. I have to add that in the interest of research I did sign up for Glamour Day, but truly I did not end up looking like a movie star. More like a female impersonator.

  LB: Was that first glimmer like a picture? Did you see Tallie in your mind’s eye?

  AL: It was actually more a feeling than a visual impression. When I looked at that poster, I felt the yearning a young girl might feel, an ache really, the wanting to be something more, more than a person’s particular geography or circumstances suggested was possible. That sense of longing was central to the story as the work progressed: Tallie’s longing for her mama, for a relationship with Spy, for a connection to her father, for information about how to become a woman, and, of course, her desire to be beautiful. Out of that initial sense of hunger, a visual did surface, and it was of Tallie standing in that beauty parlor.

  LB: I love the Klip-N-Kurl! It seemed a perfect place for a teenage girl who had lost her mother (twice!) at such a critical
time in her adolescence. It reminded me of a fairy tale in that way. Many fairy tales begin with an adolescent girl who has lost a good mother who has been replaced by an evil stepmother. I’ve often wondered if it isn’t a way to tell the story of what happens to us when we hit adolescence and begin to separate from our mothers. That wonderful, beautiful, loved mother from our childhood seems suddenly transformed into an unreasonable, out-of-it, controlling old bag. Tallie didn’t have a chance to have that crucial relationship with her mother.

  AL: Exactly, Lynda. Even for the brief period when her mother returned from Hollywood, Tallie couldn’t explore normal adolescent separation and independence. The few times she allowed herself anger, it felt too dangerous because her mother was ill. There wasn’t even an evil stepmother to rebel against. So to continue the fairy-tale theme, Tallie had to create her own bread crumb path to negotiate her way to womanhood because she didn’t have the road map a mother might provide. I don’t know if I’ve ever told you, but I watched my three nieces grow up without a mother—they were eight, eleven, and fifteen when my sister died—and witnessing the confusion, pain, and significance of their experience helped me slip into Tallie’s skin.

  LB: That’s one of the things that fascinated me about the book. There is no evil stepmother whom Tallie can hate. That’s a tough position to be in, having your Natalie Wood–look-alike mother be forever preserved as good, perfect, young, and most of all, more beautiful than you’ll ever be. It’s also a tough position for a writer to be in, because a horrible person makes a writer’s job a whole lot easier and the story follows a certain path. But no horrible person shows up directly in Tallie’s life. I kept waiting for one and when I realized no horrible person was coming, I felt this odd sadness, a loneliness of being stuck in her position exactly. It was as if Glinda the Good Witch in The Wizard of Oz got the ruby slippers and then died with them on. She’s the Good Witch, so how can you get mad about it? Our earliest love for our mothers is like that, like Glinda the Good Witch, like the original Eden. It was so lonely following Tallie through all her temptations and transgressions, knowing there wasn’t anyone who cared enough to throw her out of Eden. In the end she had to throw herself out.

  AL: It is lonely when no one cares enough to toss you out of Eden for your sins, or even notice them. But is it worse if someone tries to keep you stuck there? And you are absolutely right about it being easier for a writer if there is a wretched character threatening the heroine.

  LB: Beauty is a main character in this book. And as soon as I read Natalie Wood’s name, I knew exactly what kind of beauty you meant. There is no way to be more beautiful than Natalie Wood. I know what it’s like to be the plain-faced child of a beautiful woman. People always said my mother looked just like Ava Gardner and even now I can’t look at a picture of Ava Gardner without getting a sad, empty feeling. It broke my heart to think of Tallie watching Natalie Wood movies.

  Was your mother beautiful? Your sister?

  AL: My older sister was stunning, and people were always telling me how beautiful she was. I was the duckling to her swan. And I know exactly what you mean about that hollow feeling you experienced watching Ava Gardner. And about the desire to be beautiful. A lot of what I was exploring during the writing was this territory of desire. Not just the longing for beauty, but desire of all kinds. Where do our dreams and aspirations come from? How do our own experiences shape our desires? How do dream merchants like Hollywood and Glamour Companies form them? How do our dreams shape our lives?

  LB: And what happens when you get your wish? Tallie prays so hard for her mother to return and when she does, it turns out she’s dying. Did your sister come up for you a lot while you were working on this?

  AL: Here’s the odd thing. All the time I was writing it, I wasn’t consciously thinking about my sister or my nieces, but when I read over the completed manuscript, I had that lightbulb experience of “My God, I’m writing out of my own history.” I had a similar experience with Entering Normal. Like I’m the last to know. Does this happen to you, or are you very aware of where your material is coming from during the process?

  LB: When I’m writing and it’s going well, it’s more like slow dreaming. Half of my struggle is to be able to stop thinking and just go along for the ride. I often tell myself, “Just be the stenographer. Your only job is to be the stenographer.”

  Someone once pointed out how odd it is that we can remember our dreams, we’re aware of dream selves, but our dream selves seem to have no awareness of our waking life. What we call our “real” lives. You never say, “Man, I had the weirdest reality yesterday.”

  I think that may be part of why it’s so often the case that writers are the last to know how close the story may be to their own experience. A story has no awareness of its author. Which feels very odd after living with a character for as long as it takes to write a book. They feel so real to us, but to them we don’t exist, can’t exist. And there’s a great relief in that, somehow. To give yourself over and, for a little while, stop existing. I wonder if it isn’t somehow a bit like flying a plane— which you also do. Are writing and flying planes similar?

  AL: I love your statement that a story has no awareness of its author. It feels odd—and a little sad—to think of characters that are so very real to me not even knowing I exist. I guess we humans want reciprocity.

  About flying and writing: I’ve never thought about it before, but there is a connection in that both of them lift me out of my daily reality and present me with a different perspective of life, another way of looking at things. Both also require a great concentration, the kind of intense focus that is almost like meditation.

  LB: When the writing is going well, it’s a different state of mind. It doesn’t seem to include a lot of thinking or planning. It is absolutely the best when it doesn’t even feel like writing. When it’s like the deep state of play you see kids go into sometimes. From an adult’s point of view, the kid is playing with toys. But from the kid’s point of view, the toys are playing with him . He doesn’t have to plan out a story for the toys. As long as he’s not self-conscious, the stories will happen by themselves.

  I’ve always thought that self-consciousness was an odd name for that feeling because it’s really consciousness of others. My very WORST writing experiences happen when I’m aware of “the reader,” a reader who doesn’t even exist because until the story exists there can be no reader, and as long as I’m concentrating on the reader there can be no story. My worst days are when I’m frozen into a state of worry about what the nonexistent reader thinks about my nonexistent story.

  AL: But the trick is losing self-awareness, shutting out the critical mind. Then bliss. For me, writing flows when I don’t plan it out in advance. The only novel I never got published was one I mapped out in detail first. By the time I sat down and wrote it, it was lifeless.

  But to leap in, not knowing exactly where the story is going, takes trust, doesn’t it? Some days I think writing is one huge act of faith. You set out with that glimmer and not much else, and trust if you write straight and true and with as much courage as you can muster, a story will result. That is what is required of us.

  And I think the worst writing advice I’ve heard is that writers should have a particular reader in mind for whom they are writing. My experience has been that putting the focus on the reader (or editor or critic) lifts us out of the story and can lead to some god-awful pretentious prose.

  LB: Plus, it’s no fun.

  We became friends in the early 1990s at an artist colony where we were both working on novels. The first thing I noticed about you was how much you genuinely loved to write. You had an exhilaration about it that I loved, and your way of talking about writing was so unpretentious compared to many writers I’d met. I was just starting work on a novel that became Cruddy and felt really shaky on my feet about it. You were so supportive and practical and helped me so much. I know you have many readers who would love to write a book but have no ide
a where to begin. What advice would you give them?

  AL: Right back at ya’, Lynda. Your humor and exuberance and honesty attracted me right from the get-go.

  Advice to writers? Hmmm. I guess the old chestnuts: Take risks. Pay attention. Tell the truth as you see it. And write, write, write. Write not for fame or fortune or recognition, but because it brings you joy.

  Reading Group Questions and Topics for Discussion

  What is the significance of the title Leaving Eden? How does it work on both a literal and a figurative level?

  Tallie’s mother, Deanie, quotes the poet Robert Frost: “Home is the place that, when you go there, they have to take you in.” How does this indicate Deanie’s attitude about her hometown? In which ways does she stand out there? How are Tallie’s feelings about Eden similar and different?

  What is Tallie’s reaction to Deanie’s departure and subsequent return? How does Tallie feel inadequate compared to her mother? In which ways does she feel abandoned by her? How are mother-daughter relationships presented in the novel, including those between Goody and Deanie, Mrs. Reynolds and Sarah, and Mrs. Wilkins and Sue Beth?

  “A person’s as big as her dreams,” Tallie recalls her mother saying. At the beginning of the novel, what are Tallie’s dreams, big and small? How does she measure her dreams against the ones of those around her? Why does she adopt Deanie’s dream as her own? Does she ever believe it’s truly her own aspiration?

  Tallie doesn’t believe that anyone she knows, other than herself and her mother, has the capacity to dream. How is she proven right or wrong? What actions, both good and bad, do Deanie and Tallie undertake in order to realize their dreams?

  How does Tallie characterize the relationship between her parents, and how accurate is her viewpoint? Does the partnership seem imbalanced? What do you think attracted Deanie to Luddington, and vice versa? What role does Tallie play in their relationship? What is the dynamic of the family unit before Deanie’s departure, and afterward?