Secret Life of the Lonely Doll: The Search for Dare Wright
"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...
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A glamorous, haunted life unfolds in the mesmerizing biography of the woman behind a classic children's bookIn 1957, a children's book called The Lonely Doll was published. With its pink-and-white-checked cover and photographs featuring a wide-eyed doll, it captured the imaginations of young girls and made the author, Dare Wright, a household name. Close to forty years after its publication, the book was out of print but not forgotten. When the cover image inexplicably came to journalist Jean Nathan 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 public hospital in Queens, New York. Over the next five years, Nathan pieced together a glamorous life. Blond, beautiful 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 stunning photographs, The Secret Life of the Lonely Doll tells the unforgettable story of a woman who, imprisoned by her childhood, sought to set herself free through art. The New York Times - M. G. Lord 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.
From The Secret Life of the Lonely Doll:\ Mostly, when Edie had to be out in the world, Dare was left at home alone. There, she learned to find comfort and companionship in her books and her dolls, and to fire up her imagination. If Dare's first dolls were improvisational, homemade, the books Edie bought Dare when she was feeling flush were the real thing. The first two she purchased were a collection of Grimm's fairy tales and a picture book called The Lovely Garden, the story of the much-beloved Princess Yolande who lives on the Island of Can-be-done, whose "sweet smile seemed to say: 'What am I here for if it is not to make others happier?'" The book's message was reminiscent of her mother's inscriptions on the backs of her portraits-"To my Good and Precious Daughter"-directives on how to act and so meet the conditions of Edie's love. But the mechanics of fairy tales carried a message, too. If princesses could be put to sleep and awaken unharmed, perhaps fathers and brothers could also. If princesses could escape punishing circumstances, perhaps Dare could, too.
\ M. G. LordJean 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.\ — The New York Times\ \ \ \ \ Publishers WeeklyIn 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 JournalIn 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 ReviewsNew 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.\ \ \ \ \ From the Publisher"Most artists lead idiosyncratic existences, but few are stranger than that of Dare Wright, a beautiful and poignantly lost soul. With painstaking resolve, Jean Nathan has captured this elusive creature and, with compassion and empathy, brought her back to life. Her biography of Wright is a haunting tale, skillfully told." \ — Mark Singer, Author of Somewhere in America and staff writer, The New Yorker\ "Jean Nathan has given us a haunting portrait of a haunted and heartbreaking creative life. Here is proof, if ever any was needed, that the children's books that last are those born not of lovely thoughts but of childhood's innermost necessities."-Leonard S. Marcus, author of Margaret Wise Brown: Awakened by the Moon\ "Reads like a novel, and a Gothic one at that, full of outsized characters, an evocatively drawn backdrop, and with a strange and compelling mystery at its heart."-Meg Wolitzer, author of The Wife\ "A beguiling piece of detective work, which itself makes for a kind of fairy tale."-Stacy Schiff, author of Vera\ "Although I never read The Lonely Doll as a child or saw Dare Wright's photographs, it's as if somehow I did. Nathan has done an amazing job to capture Wright's life on the page and to bring us into the household of one of the saddest dysfunctional families ever."-Cindy Sherman\ "An evocative, amazing biography."-Jacki Lyden, author of Daughter of the Queen of Sheba\ \ \
