The Secret Life of the Lonely Doll: The Search for Dare Wright FROM THE PUBLISHER
"In 1957, a children's book called The Lonely Doll was published. With its distinctive pink-and-white checked cover and black-and-white photographs featuring a wide-eyed doll named Edith, it quickly captured the hearts of young girls all over the country and made the author, Dare Wright, a household name." "Forty years after its publication, the book was out of print but not forgotten. When the cover image unaccountably surfaced in journalist Jean Nathan's consciousness one afternoon, she went in search of the book - and ultimately its author. Nathan found Dare Wright living out her last days in a decrepit New York City public hospital." "Piecing together interviews and documents, sifting through the thousands of photographs Wright had taken, Nathan uncovered a glamorous life. Blond, beautiful Dare Wright had begun her career as an actress and model and then turned to fashion photography before stumbling upon her role as bestselling author. But there was a dark side to the story: a brother lost in childhood, ill-fated marriage plans, a complicated, controlling mother. Edith Stevenson Wright, herself a successful portrait painter, played such a dominant role in her daughter's life that Dare was never able to find her way into the adult world. Only through her work could she speak for herself: in her books she created the happy family she'd always yearned for, while her self-portraits betrayed an unresolved tension between sexuality and innocence, a desire to belong and painful isolation." Illustrated with more than fifty photographs, The Secret Life of the Lonely Doll tells the story of a woman who, imprisoned by her childhood, sought to free herself through art.
FROM THE CRITICS
M. G. Lord - The New York Times
Jean Nathan explores the disparity between Wright's polished facade and her turbulent interior in her first book, The Secret Life of the Lonely Doll, an exhaustively reported, gracefully written biography. The book was compiled with the cooperation of Wright's estate (she died, at the age of 86, in 2001), and since Nathan was privy to Wright's letters, she is in a position to tell you everything you could possibly want to know. Nathan also can -- and does -- tell things you may not want to know.
Publishers Weekly
In 1957, The Lonely Doll made model/actress turned author/photographer Dare Wright famous. The children's book told the story of Edith, a lonely doll until two teddy bears-a father and son-come to live with her. This dark and painfully poignant biography, tells the story of the beautiful and creative Dare (1914-2001), who was separated from her own father and brother when she was three. Alone with her strong-willed, manipulative mother, Edie, Dare strove to please her, Nathan writes, "playing handmaiden to Edie's queen as Edie created their own private universe" of dressup and pretend. Their closeness becomes increasingly disturbing, keeping Dare a child even as she matures into womanhood. There's a suggestion by some who knew them of a sexual element in the relationship, but Nathan is careful not to speculate. With Edie's death near the end of the book the story loses some of its clarity, because despite having many friends, Dare doesn't know how to live without her mother; the downward spiral of her final years is horrifying yet incomprehensible. But this is a quibble, and doesn't detract from the fascinating and elusive girl/woman at the center of this story. Photos. Agent, Amanda Urban. (Sept. 2) FYI: The Lonely Doll and two of its sequels have been reissued by Houghton Mifflin. Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information.
Library Journal
In The Lonely Doll (1957) and eight subsequent picture books, Dare Wright recounted the adventures of lonely doll Edith and her family of stuffed bears. This series illustrated by Wright's striking black-and-white photographs captured children's imaginations and made the one-time model a household name. In this compelling psychological biography, journalist Nathan explores the dark fairy tale that Wright actually lived. Born to a wastrel film critic father and a well-known artist mother, Wright was a child of divorce. Her mother, unable to cope with her son, abandoned him to relatives and took off with Dare. Edith Wright controlled her daughter, turning her into a puppet and a project. Marred by this unhealthy relationship, Dare did not so much create the world of Edith the doll as live through it, escaping into the realm of her imagination rather than facing reality. Nathan's meticulously researched, well-documented biography is not easy going, but it illuminates Wright's tangled and tragic life, work, and times. Recommended for public libraries. Neal Wyatt, Chesterfield Cty. P.L., Richmond, VA Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information.
Kirkus Reviews
New York journalist Nathan rescues from oblivion the enigmatic author of a beloved, politically incorrect children's book. Dare Wright died at age 86 in a state nursing home on Roosevelt Island.That was in 2001-44 years after the publication of The Lonely Doll launched her popular (and exceedingly weird) children's book series. Born in Canada, Wright was brought up mostly in Cleveland, where her divorced mother Edie tenaciously made a living as a portrait painter. Dare enjoyed a fairly glamorous adult life in Manhattan in the '50s and '60s, first as a photographer, fashion model, and actress, then as the author of numerous Edith and the Bears books. Yet the story Nathan doggedly pursues is of the steely umbilical bond between artistically driven, egotistical mother and beautiful, submissive, obedient daughter. Edie and Dare did everything together: they traveled as a pair, collaborated in work, fended off importunate admirers, even slept in the same bed. Their parents' 1919 divorce traumatized both four-year-old Dare and her seven-year-old brother Blaine, who was sent away to live with his alcoholic father. Only in their late 20s did the siblings finally reunite, spending long vacations together in upstate New York and negotiating prickly truces between son and mother, who vied for Dare's attention. This sad, triangular drama was enacted for the rest of their lives, as none of the Wrights seemed to need intimacy outside the threesome. Dare's fetish for her doll, Edith-funny how similar that name is to Mom's-led her to develop, with Edie's help, a story in photographs (complete with spanking scenes), which she painstakingly composed like a fashion shoot. Legions of fans cherished TheLonely Doll and subsequent books, though their affection couldn't ease Dare's bitter old age, soaked in alcohol following Edie's and Blaine's deaths. Nathan's straightforward account somewhat dryly sticks to the facts, allowing the curious and very lovely photographs that Dare and her mother took of each other over a lifetime to tell much of the story. Fascinating mother-daughter symbiosis makes this a Freudian feast.
Home
