Two-Part Invention
The Story of a Marriage
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3.5 • 4 Ratings
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- $11.99
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- $11.99
Publisher Description
In the final memoir of her Crosswicks Journals, the author of A Wrinkle in Time paints an intimate portrait of her forty-year marriage.
A long-term marriage has to move beyond chemistry to compatibility, to friendship, to companionship.
As Newbery Medal winner Madeleine L’Engle describes a relationship characterized by compassion, respect, and growth, as well as challenge and conflict, she beautifully evokes the life she and her husband, actor Hugh Franklin, built and the family they cherished.
Beginning with their very different childhoods, L’Engle chronicles the twists and turns that led two young artists to New York City in the 1940s, where they were both pursuing careers in theater. While working on a production of Anton Chekov’s The Cherry Orchard, they sparked a connection that would endure until Franklin’s death in 1986. L’Engle recalls years spent raising their children at Crosswicks, the Connecticut farmhouse that became an icon of family, and the support she and her husband drew from each other as artists struggling—separately and together—to find both professional and personal fulfillment.
At once heartfelt and heartbreaking, Two-Part Invention is L’Engle’s most personal work—the revelation of a marriage and the exploration of intertwined lives inevitably marked by love and loss.
This ebook features an illustrated biography of Madeleine L’Engle including rare images from the author’s estate.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Since her debut with The Small Rain in 1945, L'Engle has continued to write critically acclaimed books for adults and young readers, including a Newbery Medal-winner, A Wrinkle in Time. But this story of her marriage surpasses her best work so far. Starting with accounts of her childhood, she describes her life as a young woman in Manhattan, attracted to the theater and landing a job as an understudy touring with Eva Le Gallienne and Hugh Franklin. L'Engle and Franklin married in 1946, creating a bond that was broken ony by his death 40 years later. As Franklin's roles (with the Lunts, Ethel Barrymore, Maurice Evans, etc.) kept him absent frequently, there were problems, especially when they became parents. Yet most crises were viewed in perspective, especially when the couple gathered with children, grandchildren and friends at Crosswick, the old house in Connecticut that remains L'Engle's ``icon.'' As expected, she writes beautifully here, sharing funny, exuberant and trying moments of the ``two-part invention.'' Reading the book is a profound spiritual experience.
Customer Reviews
A Most Loving Relationship
It is not often that one meets or reads about a couple so totally grounded in their faith, family and each other’s unique talents. Hugh was busy as a very skilled, accomplished actor while his wife Madeleine juggled being an actress, wife, mother, and writer. She has written with pathos and accuracy from copious notes she kept daily to recall many distinguished friends and neighbors. Reading this book makes one feel like a family member who is privy to the personal emotions and events, happy and poignant, in this special relationship. Well worth the read.