Human Days: A Mary MacLane Reader

by Mary MacLane, Michael R. Brown (Editor), Bojana Novakovic (Foreword)

“Mary MacLane, 1902's Racy, Angsty Teenage Diarist, wrote long before provocative, confessional writing was a genre of its own. Her diaries ignited a national uproar, ushering in a new era for women's voices. Her elegant, ambitious embrace of full-disclosure had opened a door to what was possible for women.” - The Atlantic, March 2013 “She comes off the page quivering with life. Moving.” - London Times (1981 retrospect) “Mary MacLane’s first book was the first of the confessional diaries ever written in this country, and it was a sensation.” - N.Y. Times (editorial) “She had a short but fiery life of writing and misadventure, and her writing was a template for the confessional memoirs that have become ubiquitous.” - The New Yorker, March 2013 “One of the most fascinatingly self-involved personalities of the 20th century.” - The Age (Nov. 2011 feature article) “In a pre-soundbite age she already knew how to draw blood in one direct sentence. Mary MacLane - who openly resisted the idea that she was like everyone else, of her time or any other - lived the dream, as we say nowadays, and the sun of the wide, bright world has come to shine on her again.” - The Awl, March 2013 “Miss MacLane stands as the greatest sensationalist of a sensational day … She dares to tell to all the world what most people try to keep profoundly guarded … She stands for truth and dares the courage of her convictions.” - From hundreds of letters-to-the-editor on her first book

“I sing only the Ego and the individual. So does in secret each man and woman and child who breathes, but is afraid to sing it aloud.” - MM, 1917

Mary MacLane (1881-1929) was the first of the modern media a pioneer in self-revelation, in defiance of established rules, in living on her own terms - and writing about it. At age 19 she burst upon the world out of Butte, Montana with a journal - "I Await the Devil's Coming" - of her private thoughts and longings that brought national then international attention. Through the books and newspaper articles that followed she created a completely new, individual voice decades ahead of its time. She influenced Gertrude Stein, inspired F. Scott Fitzgerald, and was hailed by America’s greatest writers and everyday people on the street. And though she inspires film, stage, and music projects to this day - though she is quoted on and off the Internet - the writer behind the writing has remained unknown until now.

HUMAN A MARY MACLANE READER features the complete texts of all her books (with expurgated passages restored), her colorful newspaper writing (much of it never before reprinted), an intriguing 1902 interview, the first viewing ever of her striking personal letters, illuminating introductions to each era in her life, and comprehensive notes that open the door to her influences and the age that she came from and impacted so strikingly. A foreword from actress Bojana Novakovic provides a contemporary artist’s creative appreciation of MacLane’s still-powerful effect upon readers.

Michael R. Brown is the foremost MacLane researcher in the world today. He published the acclaimed MacLane anthology Tender Darkness and more recently authored the well-reviewed experimental memoir She and A Fugue. He is completing the first book ever on MacLane’s life, career, and influence for publication in late 2014. He lives in Northern California.

Bojana Novakovic is an Australian Film Inst. award-winning film, stage and television actress, translator, director, playwright, and co-Artistic-Director of Ride On Theatre. In 2011-2012 she toured Australia in her original stage interpretation The Story of Mary MacLane - by Herself, playing the title role. She makes her home in Melbourne, Australia.

Genres: Nonfiction

602 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 1902

About the author

Mary MacLane was a controversial Canadian-born American writer whose frank memoirs helped usher in the confessional style of autobiographical writing. MacLane was known as the "Wild Woman of Butte."

MacLane was a very popular author for her time, scandalizing the populace with her shocking bestselling first memoir and to a lesser extent her two following books. She was considered wild and uncontrolled, a reputation she nurtured, and was openly bisexual as well as a vocal feminist. In her writings, she compared herself to another frank young memoirist, Marie Bashkirtseff, who died a few years after MacLane was born, and H. L. Mencken called her "the Butte Bashkirtseff."

Reviews

[M. Sarki · Rating 5 out of 5]

http://msarki.tumblr.com/post/1415401...

You want dynamite? Here, I offer a lit stick. Collected titles such as I Await the Devil’s Coming blaze off the page, and her selected letters are amazing.  But after Mary MacLane left New York for Boston there was a bit of a drag.  She managed however to compose there her next novel, My Friend Annabel Lee, which also was remarkable because it offered such a fresh literary difference. In addition, the articles included in this collection for which Mary wrote for the magazines of her time were quite fun to read.  But I began to notice her vivacious light was fading by the time she returned home to Butte, Montana and approached the age of thirty. In Butte she composed the sequel to her amazing first book, but it clearly lacked the same energy and passion. Mary, in her writing, was intensely more direct at nineteen, and seemed to pull back as she aged after acquiring instant fame and notoriety as a youngster.  She may have fell victim to her own celebrity, and thus weakened herself as a writer.  But her life certainly was interesting and I remain passionate about reading her forthcoming biography published by Petrarca Press.

The editor of this collection, Michael Brown, has devoted years to resurrecting MacLane from the dead.  And I am appreciative, and glad, for his efforts.  She was obviously amazing.

[Andrew Doran · Rating 4 out of 5]

I stumbled across Mary MacLane's first book on the Melville House Publishing website where it features as part of their 'Neversink Library' series. Instead of buying that, I picked up this with the hope that it would give me all three of her books as well as historical context and commentary.

MacLane has been called 'the first blogger' and I think that this is a fitting description. Her first book, 'The Story of Mary MacLane' (also known as 'I Await The Devil's Coming') reads like an introspective LiveJournal, all meandering thoughts, feelings and ruminations on her place in the world. Completely fascinating.

Whenever I pick up an old book I am regularly jarred by the contrast between my automatic assumption that it will be a difficult text and the reality of how readable and modern the thoughts and feelings of the author can be. When you look at pictures of MacLane it seems that she belongs to another world but upon reading her it feels as though she would not have been out of place whatsoever on an early blogging platform 100 years later.

The book is in equal parts compelling and frustrating. In retrospect, reading a 'complete works' in one go was probably the wrong thing to do. My initial excitement about her writing wore off somewhat when I read the articles she had published once her first book was a success. Her second book, 'My Friend, Annabel Lee' was much less enjoyable and felt more contrived — as I read it I could feel that this was someone who knowingly had an audience and was now performing in public.

I would have loved to have had more context and commentary about MacLane the person and her works, particularly at this point, but the text that had been added was very brief and devoid of detail. I appreciate that this addition could have added massively to the length of the book but I felt that as presented there was little advantage to buying all of the books together, unless you wanted to read all of her non-book articles as well.

By the time we got to her third book, 'I, Mary MacLane', it had started to feel like a bit of a slog. I was reading so much of her thoughts but felt I was learning so little; perhaps that was her intent. A couple of times I thought about stopping but as soon as I did so I would get hit by a brilliant chapter and be compelled to keep going. Highlights for me at this point were the following chapters, which are worth reading by anyone:

The merciless beauty: http://www.gutenberg.org/files/43556/...

Lot's wife: http://www.gutenberg.org/files/43556/...

A damned spider: http://www.gutenberg.org/files/43556/...

I regularly found myself going off to look up some of the names that she mentions, for example Theda Bara, a famous actress of her time but now tragically unwatched due to her films being largely lost in a 1937 fire. There are many of these rabbit holes to disappear down. At the end of the book I discovered an extensive notes section which I only wish was hyperlinked in the eBook so that I could have read them in real time — going back to notes on a chapter some 600 pages before was not that useful.

So, overall this is well worth picking up but be warned — for me this was like diving into the 'director's cut extended special edition' when I wasn't even sure if I was going to like the main feature in the first place.

[Michael Brown · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'm the editor, therefore four stars out of modesty. Twenty-none years in the making, really ... so I strove to make it worthy of Mary MacLane.