Being with Charlie would have meant Stella would never be safe. Charlie’s world was that of Dr. Couney, Louise, Hildegarde. He works now at Bellevue, where—somewhere—a certificate exists that labels Margaret Perkins as deceased. Where Ida Berry, now Head Nurse Berry, knows the truth of my dismissal.
If I had married this man—this beautiful, considerate, intelligent man who has always seen me as an equal—Stella could have lost everything.
I’ve missed Charlie every day of my life, but I don’t regret the decision I made to leave him.
I give Charlie one final, lingering kiss, and he leans into it without question. He doesn’t know that it will be our last. This time, forever.
“I can’t tell you,” I whisper. “But please. Know that I love you.”
I just love Stella more.
Author’s Note
When I stumbled upon an article about Dr. Martin Couney’s incubator wards, I was struck by the utterly bizarre nature of it all—lifesaving technology on the Luna Park boardwalk, spectators paying to watch infants fight for their lives. I immediately bought and devoured Dawn Raffel’s The Strange Case of Dr. Couney: How a Mysterious European Showman Saved Thousands of American Babies, and I knew without a doubt that the subject would be perfect for a novel. Althea’s story, which itself is entirely fictional, came to me as I wrestled with a question posited by Raffel in her nonfiction text. After Dr. Couney’s death, investigations into his past revealed he’d been lying about who he was, where he was educated, and with whom he trained. Those who discovered his lies grappled with what to make of a man who was by all accounts a liar and a con man—but who saved thousands of innocent lives.
I crafted Althea’s story to reflect the same ethical question. If saving a child’s life meant usurping the parents’ role, lying, and ostensibly kidnapping—would it still be the right thing to do?
In regard to the necessity of the lie, or Cybil’s and Margaret’s parents’ rejection of Coney Island’s services, this really did happen. Dr. Couney operated several incubator wards, the one in Luna Park from 1903 to 1943, but he was not necessarily trusted by medical professionals or the general populace. Beth Allen, born prematurely in 1943, recalls that her mother initially refused to take her to Luna Park; Dr. Couney himself came to the hospital to convince her. While Cybil’s parents and the Perkinses are not directly modeled after real people, they very well could have been.
Regarding the other characters, many of them are lifted directly from history. Dr. Martin Couney, Hildegarde Couney, Louise Recht, Ms. Caswell, and Director Rottman were all real people. Charlie is a figment of my imagination, but Dr. Julius Hess—the man with whom Charlie works to bring incubators to the hospitals—was real. The first incubator ward training program at a hospital in New York City was created in 1939 at the New York Hospital; the advent of premature baby wards in hospitals was part of the reason Dr. Couney closed his own ward in 1943. Until then, hospitals had deemed it too difficult or too expensive to care for low-weight babies.
Their attitude was also influenced by the eugenics movement, which originated not with Adolf Hitler but with the American scientific community. As with most of the ugly parts of our history, we like to ignore that. But as Stella points out, the remnants linger. Special education didn’t take off until the Kennedy administration; it was just beginning in the 1950s, as Stella fights for her kids. Much of the support students with special needs did receive in that decade came not from the government or school districts but from parent advocacy groups such as the National Association of Parents and Friends of Retarded Children, now known simply as the Arc. However horrifying it may seem, straitjackets really were believed to be a useful educational tool, and most doctors recommended that students with severe diagnoses be institutionalized rather than raised at home and educated.
Stella, Jack, and Stella’s students are all invented characters, as is the awful Principal Gardner. I’ve been lucky enough to work in inclusive schools with students with special needs, and I hope that the love I feel for my students comes through in the pages. Luckily, I’ve never worked with an administrator like Gardner!
In terms of the other historical pieces in the novel:
Most of the newspaper articles and headlines are real, as is Martin Couney’s obituary. Yes, men and women really did place classified ads for marriage in the papers!
I tried to do Bellevue Hospital justice, as it was often on the forefront of treating people rejected by society. It was also pivotal in the training of female nurses, though requirements were strict (e.g., no married women). Many hospitals sent babies to Luna Park or Atlantic City for Dr. Couney’s treatment, and Bellevue may well have been one of them; however, I took the liberty of creating a doctor who was opposed to Dr. Couney’s practices, as many were.
All the details regarding World War II veterans at Vassar are true. Thirty-six men enrolled at Vassar in 1946, and many more had taken classes at the school by 1953. The sixteen who graduated held diplomas not from Vassar but from the State University of New York; Vassar did not become officially coed until 1969.
For more information on Coney Island’s incubators, check out Raffel’s book or Claire Prentice’s Miracle at Coney Island: How a Sideshow Doctor Saved Thousands of Babies and Transformed American Medicine. The Internet also has several articles about the wards, many of which include photographs and interviews with survivors. Bellevue School of Nursing records, including yearbooks and bulletins, can be found online as well.
Finally, if you’re interested and able to donate, the International Rescue Committee (rescue.org) provides premature baby incubators to countries in crisis.
Acknowledgments
I wrote eighty thousand semi-intelligible words on a Word document over the course of a semester at Vanderbilt; the following people helped me turn those words into this novel.
Eternal thanks to:
Early readers, including Ellen Armstrong, Ryan Armstrong, Mary Lee Bass (Mimi), Lori Martin, Karen Crow, Lindsay Galvin, Jorge Nuñez (my own Jack, minus the war bits), and Eric Armstrong.
The rest of my supportive family and friends, including but not limited to Stan Bass (PawPaw), Jay and Nancy Crow (Pops and Nan), Adam Crow and Jennifer Lloyd-Crow, Mike Crow, and my education cohort at Vanderbilt (Doing It for the Money and the Fame).
My agent, Melissa Danaczko of Stuart Krichevsky Literary Agency, who believed in this book before it was worthy of being called one, and who is as caring and supportive as Althea herself.
My editor, Tara Singh Carlson, and her assistant, Ashley Di Dio, the pair of whom continually astounded me with their incredible eye for sharpening both the most sweeping emotion and the tiniest details.
The rest of Putnam’s publishing team.
The teachers at Water’s Edge Elementary and Saint Andrew’s School, for always encouraging me to write.
The Miami Writers Institute and The Porch Nashville.
Robin Oliveira, for her careful read and helpful suggestions.
My sister Ryan, again, for taking my author photo and being the most supportive and loyal person I know.
Dawn Raffel, author of The Strange Case of Dr. Couney, and Claire Prentice, author of Miracle at Coney Island.
Dr. Martin Couney himself, without whom thousands of babies would not have lived and this novel would not have been written.
THE
Light
of
Luna Park
ADDISON ARMSTRONG
A Conversation with Addison Armstrong
Discussion Guide
A Conversation with Addison Armstrong
One might be surprised to hear that you wrote The Light of Luna Park at twenty-two years old. What inspired you to write this emotionally nuanced novel?
I wrote the type of book I’ve always read. The first novel I remember reading was Little Women by Louisa May Alcott in first grade, and
I suppose I’ve read about women and the past ever since! I love stories about history, women, family secrets, complicated relationships, and moral gray areas. So I may not have as much life experience as some other authors, but I’ve lived it all vicariously!
The Light of Luna Park is rooted in the real history of medicine behind the “incubator babies” of Coney Island. How did you perform the research required for this story? Was there any information that surprised you?
My research started when I was reading a completely unrelated history piece. As I scrolled through the article, a clickbait-style heading popped up as my next suggested read . . . and even as I rolled my eyes at the unlikelihood of its being legitimate—baby incubators at an amusement park?—I found myself clicking the link. Obviously, I was immediately hooked. I scrambled to read everything I could on Dr. Couney’s incubators, nonfiction books and primary sources like newspapers, photographs, and interview transcripts. I even got to visit Bellevue Hospital, which has a historical gallery that displays a hospital timeline, an old ambulance, and a centuries-old medical kit.
As to what I found surprising? Everything! I couldn’t believe that people paid to see babies struggling to survive, for one thing, and so it blew my mind that the shows even existed at all.
But as surprising as the existence of Couney’s incubator wards was the fact that some parents turned them down. Several interviews with living survivors of the incubator wards report that their mothers were offered spots only after mothers of babies born before them refused the offer. Notably, only the babies who did go to Coney Island (or Atlantic City) are still around to remember.
Finally, I was shocked by the juxtaposition between Couney’s exhibits and the eugenics-related displays proliferating at the same time and place. In every way, the incubator wards were just so incongruous to the setting in which they found themselves. They were an oasis of calm in the frenzy of an amusement park, a bastion of hope and acceptance in a world that had the rest of the scientific field calling for selective breeding and sterilization.
How did you come to craft the two heroines—Althea and Stella? Are they based on real people, or were they inspired by anyone in particular?
Neither was inspired by anyone in particular, though of course I can’t write about Althea as a mother without thinking of my own mom. Both characters have elements of myself in them—from Althea’s single-mindedness, which often translates as standoffishness or anti-socialness (oops) to Stella’s career as a teacher. In some ways, Stella also has elements of my sister Ryan in her; they’re both fiercely loyal and will fight with every last breath for those they love.
What is your favorite scene in the novel, and why?
This is a hard one, because I’ve rewritten and reread every scene so many times that I can no longer read a single sentence without remembering all the versions of it that have come and gone. So while there’s no one scene that sticks out to me, I do love those depicting Stella and her students. One of my favorite moments is when Robby smears his pureed food all over Stella’s face—it makes me laugh, because I’ve been on the receiving end of the same thing!
I also like the scenes with Althea and Charlie, because I think their intensity is so well-matched. The way Althea handles the doctors at the AMA meeting leaves me feeling smug, too.
This story examines the complicated ties of motherhood and the lengths a mother will go to protect her daughter. What drew you to portray this relationship and the choices Althea makes?
I’m lucky. My mom and dad are my foundation; I don’t know who I’d be without them. They love me unconditionally, and I know that, like Althea, they would sacrifice everything for me. I also know that if I were to find out they weren’t really “mine” biologically, none of that would change. What matters isn’t the blood we share but the bond we share.
I’ve also spent years working with children myself—teaching, tutoring, nannying, you name it. I’m not yet a mother, but still I wouldn’t hesitate to sacrifice for the kids I’ve known. Of course, let me put on the record that I would not, like Althea, kidnap them!
If Stella’s timeline was set in present day, how do you think the school would have handled her professional situation? Do you think that would have changed the path her story takes?
Stella would definitely have the opportunity today to take legal action against the school if they tried to use undue physical restraint against the students. That being said, Stella’s situation is not as distantly past as it may seem. The Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (originally the Education for All Handicapped Children Act) wasn’t passed until 1975, and the Americans with Disabilities Act came fifteen years later. Even today there is more to be done.
Of course, I don’t mean to be dire! Many of Stella’s kids today would be in inclusive classrooms, use Augmentative and Alternative Communication (AAC) devices to communicate, self-propel their wheelchairs, and take advantage of a host of other resources. Unlike in 1950, schools are required to provide a free and appropriate education in the least restrictive environment to all students with (and without) special needs.
As for how this would affect Stella . . . I can imagine her suing the school over their abuses and getting fired as a result. I think she still would have ended up in New York City chasing down the ghost of her mother, because she would have needed Althea’s strength and guidance just as much in this new scenario. Still, she would wonder whether she was doing the right thing for her kids; still, she would need to fill her grief and time away from work with meaning.
Why did you choose to include Jack’s PTSD from World War II in the story? What do you think this adds to the novel?
A third of the adult male population of the United States in the 1940s served in World War II, plus hundreds of thousands of American women. But despite the fact that virtually no one came out of the war unscarred, there was very little understanding of PTSD (which wasn’t used as a term until the 1970s or a diagnosis until 1980). While the trauma of war tormented veterans, and by extension their loved ones, there was little done to effectively combat the problem. The effects were so far-reaching that I felt I couldn’t write a story that took place in 1950 without considering them.
Additionally, I saw a clear link between the eugenics movement in Althea’s era and the war in Stella’s. Just as Althea’s actions led to Stella’s circumstances, the eugenics movement in the 1920s laid the groundwork for Hitler’s atrocities during World War II and their aftermath.
I think Jack’s struggles are also necessary for Stella. She’s a fighter, and I wanted her to go from fighting against her husband to fighting alongside her husband. For them to have the strong marriage I wanted, they had to be right for each other—but there had to be something in the way. For Stella, it was grief. For Jack, it was the trauma of war.
What do you hope readers will take away from The Light of Luna Park?
I hope readers come away with a sense of how powerful unconditional love is. More than that, I hope they see that every human being is deserving of it. There are people in the novel (and in our history and even our present) who try to claim that some people aren’t strong enough, smart enough, able enough, healthy enough—but I want readers to see how, on every level and in any circumstance, a person has the capacity to love and be loved.
Without giving anything away, did you always know how the story would end?
I always knew how things would end for Althea, Stella, and the others, but I wrote the last chapter (Althea’s) at the suggestion of my editor. My mom had actually proposed the same thing after reading the manuscript months earlier, but I’d (foolishly) ignored her! I knew what would happen in that chapter, as I’d already alluded to it in the doctor’s letter to Stella, but I didn’t know I was going to include the scene itself in the novel.
What’s next for you?
I’m finishing my master’s in Reading Education at Vanderbilt Universi
ty and hope to stay in Nashville to teach elementary school when I graduate. In the meantime, I’m continuing my writing! I don’t think I could stop if I tried. My upcoming projects, like The Light of Luna Park, take little-known historical eras or events and explore the choices (or lack thereof) women were given within them.
Discussion Guide
1. What did you think of how Stella’s grief over her mother’s passing was portrayed in the novel? If you’ve experienced grief, did you feel Stella’s emotions mirrored yours, or were they different?
2. What were your feelings toward Stella’s husband, Jack, in the beginning of the novel? What about at the end? Do you feel he is a good husband?
3. In chapter 7, when Althea views one of the circus acts at Coney Island featuring children and adults with deformities, she tells a woman, “The whole thing feels exploitative.” The woman counters this by saying, “Way I see things, the circus is a haven for people like that.” Discuss these differing opinions and your own in relation to this conversation.
4. Which character was your favorite, and why?
5. The Light of Luna Park calls into question how far someone would go to save another. Do you think Althea ultimately made the right decision for Stella? For herself? Why or why not?
6. How do you think Althea and Stella are similar? How are they different?
7. Much of the information regarding Luna Park and Dr. Couney—the “Incubator Doctor”—is rooted in fact. Which piece of information was the most surprising to learn?
8. Do you think Stella handled her professional dilemma well in the beginning of the novel? If you were in her place, how do you think you would have reacted?
9. How did you feel about Althea and Charlie’s relationship? Were you satisfied with how it ended up?
10. Do you think Dr. Couney’s lies or omissions were justified by his motivations?
The Light of Luna Park Page 27