The Book Woman’s Daughter by Kim Michele Richardson
I recently read this wonderful book for my AAUW book
group. There are references to Barbara Pym’s
Excellent Women, Rachel Field’s Hitty, and Rumer Godden’s The
Dolls’ House, descriptions of dolls, and discussions of legal proceedings,
including in the notes, allusions to Loving v. Virginia.
If ever a book were written for me, this is it. I wrote my dissertation on Pym, and Godden
wrote to me when I was writing it. I
also wrote a book on Pym’s work, The Subversion of Romance in the Novels of
Barbara Pym. I also wrote about The
Dolls’ House, and Hitty. We have
Hitty dolls in the museum collection, a Pym doll, and our favorite doll house
is called Plantagenet house after Godden’s doll house family.
Here are some references in this lyrical, beautifully
written novel:
P. 51: “I added
Robert Hichens’s novel Strange Lady and a novel by Barbara Pym, Excellent
Women, that sounded humorous.”
P. 79: The narrator brings
her friend Peal who works in the fire tower a copy of Excellent Women.
P.77: Describes to “old stuffed toys” strewn across Pearl’s
bed. A cloth baby doll wore a “faded
flowery seersucker dress stitched up a few times.” The doll had a hand painted face. Along side the doll was a “worn, dark-brown
horse with a soft golden mane, tail and matching button eyes . . . “ When she sees them, Honey, the narrator, remembers
her own stuffed doll and teddy bear.
P. 141: Honey gives
Bonnie, her coal miner friend Bonnie, a copy of Field’s Hitty.
P. 285: Reference to The
Dolls’ House.
