THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, February 5, 1995 TAG: 9502020305
SECTION: COMMENTARY PAGE: J3 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Book Review
LENGTH: Medium: 79 lines
VIRGINIA BEACH romance author Jacqueline Marten always was ahead of her era.
She never wrote a conventional ``bodice-ripper'' about a wimpy chick giving her all for the dim-witted affections of some roaring roughneck.
Get a life, Heathcliff.
``My sons used to ask me why, in my books, I always seemed to make the women dominant,'' Marten said. ``I explained they weren't dominant at all. They were just loved by very tender, compassionate men.''
Such is the case, again, in Moonshine and Glory (Pinnacle, 541 pp., $4.99), just out, a historical novel about the way America was and the way, emphatically for Marten, love ought to be:
50/50.
And conjugal.
Civil War spy Susannah Trail of Moonshine is typically savvy and, at fade-out, typically betrothed, to Union Army medic Evan Holloway.
``Would you be so kind as to kiss me, Susannah?'' he asked in a meek voice, although the arms that held her had the strength of steel.
``I believe in happily-ever-after,'' Marten concedes. ``But I have never confused it with easily-ever-after. You have to sustain an ongoing relationship, in spite of the kids being bratty or the husband coming home crabby or your gaining 20 pounds.''
The author of a score of fictive romances has sustained an authentic one of her own in marriage to lawyer Albert Marten for 45 years, with four sons. She was a tough, bright mother. At 71, she is a tough, bright grandmother.
And, like her heroines, Marten did it her way.
With degrees in journalism from Hunter College and the University of Michigan, Marten asked the McFadden magazine chain in New York for an editorial position and wound up writing ``true confession'' stories instead for 5 cents a word. In 1950 a typical yarn for True Story earned her $250 and a television adaptation. For 25 years she turned out these contemporary morality tales, one of which was enshrined as exemplary in Richard Summers' Craft of the Short Story.
``When I married, writing was one of the few careers women could have and stay home,'' Marten said.
After the confession market faded, she switched to romance novels, having summoned her otherwise male family together for this brief official announcement:
``The writing is now full time. I am no longer a cook or housewife.''
So cope, my loves.
From Nightmare in Red for Playboy to Dream Walker for Pocket Books, Marten's panoply of titles have been translated into many languages, including Chinese. She has sold millions of books. Dream Walker, her most recent, alone sold 240,000 copies.
``Jackie has an ability to touch on things that others can't,'' testifies senior editor Denise Little at Kensington Books in New York.
Marten's next, Just a Kiss Away, will be out in July and deals with, among other things, abortion. The author is firmly pro-choice. She is also horrified at recent violence across the country in connection with the issue.
``To murder in the name of life is weird,'' Marten said.
But it is not a new view for her. She has been taking strong stands for years, in and out of her books. At a recent autographing for the benefit of a local battered women's shelter, the sign on her table read:
FEMINIST ROMANCE WRITER.
Her last novel was written in the course of - and despite - recurrent migraine headaches and five knee operations.
``I have a tremendous ability to concentrate,'' Marten said. ``And I don't give a damn if the house gets clean. I was always ahead of my time.
``I was just being me.`` MEMO: Bill Ruehlmann is a mass communication professor at Virginia Wesleyan
College. ILLUSTRATION: Photo
THE MANNING STUDIO
Romance writer Jacqueline Marten's latest novel is ``Moonshine and
Glory.''
by CNB