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The Semicentennial of Seventeenth Summer: Some Questions and Answers
Having won a short story contest in high school with "Sixteen," Maureen Daly boldly announced to her family, after her freshman year atRosary College, that she was going to write a novel. The coal bin in thebasement of their home close to Lake Winnebago became her office where shestarted writing Seventeenth Summer. Submitting her manuscript to Dodd,Mead and Company in the firm's first contest for an intercollegiate literaryfellowship, Maureen won first prize. Seventeenth Summer appeared inprint in 1942. The modern period of young adult literature is often said tohave begun with Seventeenth Summer.
Does Maureen Daly value reading?
She reads and reads. Going to the library several times a week as agirl, Maureen thought books were "wealthy things." In high school she readWuthering Heights, Jane Eyre, and the bestsellers of the day,including books by Edna Ferber and Sinclair Lewis. She likes Bobbie Ann Mason(In Country, Harper and Row, 1985). She considers "Ruth's Song (BecauseShe Could Not Sing It)" by Gloria Steinem "magnificent" (MS., September,1983). During the period before his death, Maureen and her husband reread theworks of Willa Cather.
Where does the author live?
Today Maureen Daly lives in Palm Desert, California, where she writes acolumn for The Desert Sun as a restaurant critic. She also writesnovels, the latest being First a Dream (Scholastic, 1990). Marriage andcareer took her to homes in France, Italy, Ireland, England, and Spain;returning to the United States, the McGiverns lived on a farm in Pennsylvania.When highway development led to condemnation of the acreage, the family movedto California.
When was she born?
She was born on March 15, 1921, in Ireland. Her father, Joseph Daly,emigrated to America, choosing Wisconsin because the green country resembledhis homeland. Later her mother followed, bringing Maureen and her two sisters.A third sister was born here.
Are the Morrow sisters in Seventeenth Summer modeled after the Dalysisters?
Yes. Angeline ("Angie") Morrow, the protagonist, is actually Maureen. Angelineis named for a nun in the Order of St. Agnes at the St. Mary's Springs Academy,the school that Maureen attended in Fond du Lac. Margaret Morrow is modeledafter Marguerite ("Maggie") Daly, and Kathleen ("Kay") Daly served as theprototype for Lorraine Morrow. Kitty, the baby of the family, is Shelia Daly,the one sister born in America. Kay became an executive with Revlon; Sheila,with Chanel. Maggie wrote for the Chicago Tribune. The foursome can beseen in "Career Sisters" in Life (November 7, 1949) and in the sequel,"They All Made Good" (Life, May 11, 1959).
Does she have her own family?
In 1946 Maureen married William P. McGivern, whom she had first met atan autograph party where he bought a copy of Seventeenth Summer. Theywere married in Chicago at Holy Name Cathedral. A mystery writer, Bill died in1982 after a lengthy bout with cancer. Writers and world travelers, theMcGiverns had two children, Megan and Patrick, now an elementary schoolteacher. No sooner had Maureen finished the writing of Bill's last book (AMatter of Honor) than Megan telephoned to say that she had discovered alump. On New Year's Eve, 1983, Megan died. Her husband and two sons, Antonioand Nicholas, survive.
How did the death of her husband and daughter influence Maureen Daly as awriter?
It devastated her for a time. After Megan's death, Maureen tried writingsomething along the lines of "Ruth's Song," but that effort became toodepressing. Then while whale-watching with friends off Baja California, shefound herself sharing a mystical moment with a whale intent on showing off herbaby, which tumbled about in the water "like a toddler in snow clothes."Returning to her home, Maureen found herself inspired by that bond of sympathywith the mother whale, and she began writing about her love for own daughter ata very important time in Megan's life, i.e., her seventeenth summer.That story can be found in Acts of Love (Scholastic, 1986).
How does she write and how does she promote books?
She writes mornings, breaks for lunch at her dining room table, thenreturns to her typewriter, sometimes writing late into the afternoon. A Dundeemarmalade jar (ginger flavor) holds her pencils. Many girls, she has said,remember their first kiss; she remembers her first librarian. In honor ofMegan, Maureen has endowed a library at the Barbara Sinatra Children's Center,part of the Eisenhower Medical Complex in Rancho Mirage: "I have a feelingthere is great consolation in books, and a lot of children sleep with books."Her dream is for the young people to take home books that somewhere have asmall yellow circle bearing the words "Megan loves you." As she said at theNational Council of Teachers of English in Los Angeles in 1987, "While I helpmyself, I shall help them."
Nancy Vogel teaches at Fort Hays State University in Hays, Kansas. Sheattended the ALAN breakfast at NCTE in Los Angeles in 1987 where Maureen Dalyspoke. After the address, she invited Daly to keynote the Fall English Workshopat Fort Hays State University in 1989. Her article, "The Semicentennial ofSeventeenth Summer: Maureen Daly's Acts of Love," appeared in theNebraska English Journal in spring of 1992.
