(no subject)

[skygiants]

I've been tackling a project at work recently that has to do with the Lindbergh kidnapping case, which is one of the reasons I've been waxing extremely nostalgic about one of my favorite childhood authors that nobody else has ever heard of: Anne Lindbergh, who I didn't realize until I was much older was actually the daughter of Charles and Anne Morrow. Which has no relevance to her books at all, really, except for the cognitive dissonance; Anne Lindbergh's books are charming and SUPER WEIRD eighties and nineties middle-grade fantasies that seem about a billion worlds away from the 1930s and controversies about airplanes and fascism.

My favorite -- which I've just reread -- is called Three Lives to Live. This book has actually been a huge influence on the way I write, and also the way I edit. It's written as protagonist Garet's 'autobiography' for a 7th-grade school project, which means about a third of the book is complaints about her English teacher criticizing her for not doing what "The Professional Writer" would do. At one point the teacher complains that Garet needs to use more active speech verbs than 'said'.

Garet's response is to rewrite the offending passage, like so:

"I wouldn't want to risk it. I bet you wouldn't either," I chirp.
"I would so," she blubbers.
"You would not," I yelp.
"How much do you want to bet?" she queries.
"I'll bet a million dollars," I coo.
"You don't have a million dollars," she yawns.
"Then I'll bet anything you like," I yap.
"You don't have anything I like," she bellows, "so I guess I won't bet after all."
"Chicken!" I grin.

I THINK OF THIS EVERY TIME I'm about to recommend to someone that they vary their word choice in a dialogue section. There's a lot to be said for the invisible said!

(The seventh-grader whose autobiography involves a lot of bodice-ripping from a love-crazed duke suggests that Garet add 'breathed throatily' to her collection of speaking verbs. I love that seventh-grader.)

...meanwhile, the actual plot involves Garet's relationship with the rest of her family: her grandmother, whom she lives with, and her twin sister, Daisy, who isn't actually her twin sister, she just came down the laundry chute one day a few months ago. Their grandmother refused to provide any information and insisted that Garet just had to adapt to having a sister in the house. Garet is not adapting to having a sister in the house. Daisy is prettier and smarter and weirder and gets EVERYTHING, including a canopy bed and a laptop computer, ugh! (Sidenote: the book was written in 1993, and I'd forgotten laptop computers were already invented then!)

Then about midway through there's the reveal that Daisy is actually a duplicate of their grandmother's younger self from 1943, who came down the magic laundry chute and is now stuck in the future.

(Why a magic laundry chute? WHY NOT.)

Garet just assumes this means her grandmother loves Daisy better because Daisy's a version of herself, but given givens it's not such a huge surprise when towards the end of the book the second reveal comes: Garet is ALSO a clone of their grandmother who came down the magic laundry chute when she was two.

So basically it's all a big exploration of nature and nurture and the way the same person can grow up to be completely different people -- in some ways kind of like a much peppier version of Orphan Black -- except it's also a story of one woman who's been forced to dedicate her life to RAISING HER OWN CLONES, which is fairly creepy, when you think about it, but OK, sure. And also it's a meta-story about telling your story, and also a story about a magic laundry chute. Because WHY NOT.

I had not forgotten how much I loved this book, but it's nice to be confirmed in how much I love this book! I'm kind of sad now that it's much too late to nominate it for Yuletide. MAYBE NEXT YEAR.

Comments

[sapote]

Oh my god, I remember that book! I always felt super weird about the grandmother never marrying or having non-clone kids (maybe she didn't want to! but I was a child at the time) but instead just raising different versions of herself. Also I still have this little frisson of anxiety every time I compare fingerprints with someone, because WHAT IF.

(I also remember the conflict between Daisy and Garet being largely about Daisy being very very femme and Garet being the kind of kid who owns cargo pants? Do I remember that correctly?)

[skygiants]

RIGHT? Like, she seems to be a pretty okay grandmother except for the part where HER GRANDKIDS ARE ALL HER and how can you be disinterested about that?

(Hmmm, that's more in the background than the foreground -- it's true that Daisy dresses more femme and Garet has an edgy short haircut and so on, but the conflicts are more about the fact that Garet is very straightforward and Daisy tends to go about getting what she wants in ways that Garet considers manipulative. Which I guess is also kind of gendered, really.)

[sdelmonte]

Is it any wonder she and Saint-Exupéry were close friends?

[skygiants]

I think that was her mother Anne Morrow who was close friends with Saint-Exupery... Kind of interesting to think she might have been influenced, though!

[seekingferret]

Is there another book about a magic laundry chute? Because this book does not sound familiar at all, but the idea of a magic laundry chute is nagging at me as if it were something I'd come across before.

[skygiants]

I can say with about 99% certainty that I have never come across another book with a magic laundry chute.

[cinaed]

Well, it isn't a magic laundry chute, but in Suzanne Collin's Overlander series (the middle grade series she wrote before the Hunger Games), the main character and his baby sister fall through a laundry chute and land in an underground world with giant talking rats and cockroaches.

[cahn]

...ahahaha, this was totally my 9th grade English teacher.

The sad part is, I got a higher grade on the story rewritten without any says/said, which sounded very much like what you have quoted above and which I hated!

[skygiants]

AS DOES GARET. Oh, man. Half the fun of the book is the groans of recognition about Bad English Teachers We Have Known.

[kate_nepveu]

WHY NOT indeed!

[skygiants]

I would honestly believe that Anne Lindbergh came across a laundry chute one day with the "be fifty years ahead of your time!" motto on it and was like, YOU KNOW WHAT...

[katarik]

fsadkjjdfsfdsjkfsdkj I REMEMBER THAT BOOK. Oh, man, now I have to hunt that down again. And the cover, with Daisy flying out in her frilly peach dress, and Garet and her asymmetrical haircut!

I also really would like to reread it with an eye towards OCD and other neuroatypicality, now that I'm not a kid anymore. I wonder if Daisy has it easier or harder than Marguerite did, growing up in a society that has definitions for behaviors like Daisy's.

[skygiants]

THE SUPER NINETIES ASYMMETRICAL HAIRCUT. I have very specific memories of that haircut! "One inch above the ear on one side, one inch below the ear on the other." SO COOL, thought tiny Becca. So, so cool.

...that's a really interesting point that I never thought to make about Daisy, mostly because Garet doesn't seem to exhibit much of the same kind of behavior. It'd be a really interesting way to read it, though. I'll be really curious to see what you think if you do!

[rachelmanija]

WHAT.

[skygiants]

It's basically a standard blended-family bonding narrative, except instead of stepsiblings EVERYONE IS CLONES.

[qian]

That's so weird! In a good way. I think?? You read the weirdest books! :D