Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, April 16, 1995 TAG: 9504140053
SECTION: BOOK PAGE: F-5 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE:
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
By Berkley Franklin. Privately printed.
Perhaps the most significant contribution of this little biography is its correction of the old chestnut that John Randolph, an eccentric 19th century congressman, lived in Roanoke City or Roanoke County. He lives at least 150 miles east of Roanoke County which was created in 1838, five years after his death.
Franklin, a former Roanoke school librarian, was fascinated by the last of four Virginia Randolphs to serve in Congress to the extent that he named his son John Randolph Franklin.
Historians have told of Randolph's "mastery of the biting phrase and the lightning riposte" and of his oddness and colorful personality. A six-term congressman, Randolph also served in the U.S. Senate, in the Virginia Constitutional Convention and as minister to Russia. He once said, "I am an aristocrat, I love democracy but hate equality," according to Franklin.
Randolph, the subject of 15 books in local libraries, in his will granted freedom to slaves on his plantation and left money for them to establish a new home in Ohio. He fought Henry Clay in a duel, opposed most legislation except states' rights bills and was mentally deranged in his later years.
- GEORGE KEGLEY
The Memory Book of Starr Faithfull.
By Gloria Vanderbilt. Knopf. $24.
Had Nabokov's Lolita kept a diary, parts of it may have resembled Starr Faithfull's "memory book." Gloria Vanderbilt's characterization of Starr entirely through her diary entries, however, goes beyond that of a "nymphet." Starr's letters to "Mem," short for memory book, run from 1917 to 1931 and reflect not only a damaged girl becoming a woman in a world of wealthy society, speakeasies and changing values, but also a girl aching for love - whatever that may be.
Based loosely on the life of a real woman, Vanderbilt's fictional account attempts to look behind the headlines of Starr Faithfull's mysterious death in 1931 to answer the question, "What was Starr Faithfull really like?" In her Author's Note, Vanderbilt continues, "what is truth? We all have our own realities, our own truths."
Revealed through her diary entries, Starr's life emerges as she struggles with her questions and uncertainties in a self-portrait of a beautiful but completely tragic figure.
- HARRIET LITTLE
Milkweed.
By Mary Gardner. Papier-Mache Press. $18.
Mary Gardner's second book, "Milkweed," reads more like a long poem than a novel, with its lyrical narrative and short, staccato chapters. Her style lends a surreal aura to the story of Susan, a young girl left orphaned by the inexplicable murder of both parents. The experience leads Susan to develop a self-sufficient individuality. She turns to books and learning, but before graduating, leaves college to marry and becomes a Minnesota farm wife. During the pre-World War II era, after all, women were expected to be supportive helpmates, subjugating their personal growth and dreams for the family's sake. In Susan's case it backfires. She can play the role of subservient wife and mother for only so long, after which it begins to stifle her.
Her imperfect solution to her deepening dissatisfaction is to take her children and leave her uncomprehending husband and the farm behind. Ironically, the decision having such a profound effect on Susan and her family bestows neither happiness nor peace. She offers what solace she can to her confused daughter by saying, "Women always go on, Mar. All of us ... You can love me or hate me or both. It's all right."
All of the characters who people "Milkweed" seem emotionally impaired. Their lives pass like prison sentences. No one realizes it is the tiny, everyday joys that make the major and minor problems worthwhile.
Gardner follows Susan's evolution from dutiful farm wife to struggling single mother to grandmother as much as by what she omits as by what she includes. The novel has a dream-like quality, and the resulting suspense keeps readers turning the pages.
The book provides no answers. Despite human technological progress, Gardner says, each generation continues to suffer the same emotional traumas as the previous one. Humans get smarter, but not wiser. "Milkweed" lifts readers out of their own reality and plops them into an earlier era, where answers were no easier to come by than they are now.
- MARIAN COURTNEY
George Kegley recently retired from this paper.
Harriet Little teaches at James River high school.
Marion Courtney lives in Charlottesville.
by CNB