Brent Kinser and Anna Lillios (eds): The Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings Journal of Florida Literature Volume XIV (2005–06)

As I mentioned in a comment some posts ago, if it hadn't been for a heavy rainstorm forcing me to abandon the first attempt to get to Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings's farm at Cross Creek, I'd never have driven to a mall in Interlachen and bought this publication from a thrift store for all of 40 cents. And I'd have missed out big time.

 

This 154-page scholarly publication is very enlightening, and – to my surprise – highly amusing. I could have expected the disagreeable, drunken nature of Wallace Stevens's behavior as described in 'Mrs. Rawlings, Mr. Stevens and the Nature of Florida' by Thomas C. Harrison, but I wasn't prepared for the behavior of Rawlings herself in 'Yesterday's Woman' by, er, Lollie Pop Twitters. Twitters asks for directions to Cross Creek and a neighbor tells her that '[t]hat bitch [...] will shoot the pants off you' if she isn't expected. Well, she isn't expected and Rawlings has a bad hangover but nevertheless welcomes Twitters and invites her to have a drink with her, outside with all the mosquitoes and a friendly cockroach. On being asked how best she writes, Rawlings replies 'Tight as a tick'. Is this just a malicious joke? Well, it's a joke, although Rawlings is making it at her own expense because she is Lollie Pop Twitters!

 

But most of the book is taken up by Rawlings's letters to Dr – later Professor – Cliff Lyons and his wife Gladys, starting off very politely and then rapidly becoming very warm as their long-term friendship blossomed. Cliff Lyons was going to be Rawlings's literary executor, but for a few reasons – his increasing pompousness being among them – she named the publisher Julia Scribner instead right the end. Her disappointment with Cliff was professional, and she seems to have remained good friends with him and especially with his wife.

 

Mercifully, not a great number of Rawlings's letters here deal with the well-known long, tedious and hugely expensive 'invasion of  privacy' law suit of Zelma Cason. What really shines through these letters is not just Rawlings's warmth and generosity of spirit but her spunky sense of humor: for instance, on learning in 1945 that Julia Scribner is to marry an Episcopal clergyman she tells the Lyons 'I can only hope that as a man of God, he has enough Hell in him to give her a good time'. The same year, a cottonmouth moccasin snake appears in the toilet pan and is eventually killed, and Rawlings jokes that she feels queasy about toilets after that: 'God, the menace to my love life––.'

 

This is great stuff – a joy to read. My other Rawlings post:

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Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings in Cross Creek

Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings in Cross Creek, Hawthorne, Florida

'FRIENDS OF LIBRARIES U.S.A.

LITERARY LANDMARKS REGISTER

 

CROSS CREEK

 

Beloved home of

MARJORIE KINNAN RAWLINGS

 

FROM 1928 TO 1953

 

Designated by the Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings

Society and the Florida Center for the Book

on the occasion of her 100th birthday.'

 

Marjorie Kinnan (1896 –1953) was born in Washington D. C., graduated from the University of Wisconsin in English in 1918, married Charles Rawlings the following year, and moved to this 72-acre property in Cross Creek near Hawthorne in 1928. This is now the Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings Historic State Park, where virtually all of the furniture in her house is authentic.

 

 

At the entrance to the park are two photos of MKR in Cross Creek.

 

'"IT IS NECESSARY TO LEAVE THE IMPERSONAL HIGHWAY, TO STEP INSIDE THE RUSTY GATE AND CLOSE IT BEHIND. ONE IS NOW INSIDE THE ORANGE GROVE, OUT OF ONE WORLD AND IN THE MYSTERIOUS HEART OF ANOTHER. AND AFTER LONG YEARS OF SPIRITUAL HOMELESSNESS, OF NOSTALGIA, HERE IS THAT MYSTIC LOVELINESS OF CHILDHOOD AGAIN. HERE IS HOME."

 

MARJORIE KINNAN RAWLINGS

CROSS CREEK, 1942'

 

In the property is a citrus grove, of which this is one of the orange trees.

 

Spanish moss dangles all over.

 

A replica of the original barn on the same site.

 

 

And a replica tenant house.

 

One of the chicken pens.

 

And a duck pen enclosing a small pond.

 

I've no idea what the bell has to do with the wood-cutting area (if is at all related).

 

The pump house.

 

The garden at the back of the house.

 

 

And at the side of the house is a replica of Rawlings's Oldsmobile. She didn't learn to drive until she was in her early thirties, and was notoriously bad: she had several prangs, but was unhurt.

 

 

 

The house itself was in Rawling's name, which was financially convenient for her when she and Charles divorced in 1933, the year she published her first novel South Moon Under. This was originally three properties, but only one when they came here.

 

 

This is where she wrote her books, such as The Yearling and Cross Creek, and the typewriter belonged to her.

 

The bed where MKR rested from her work (right next to her car).

 

The living room, and in the center of the photo the cupboard which was the hideaway where she stashed her moonshine.

 

Opposite the liquor hold, shelves of books.

 

A posthumous bust of MKR by Lee Burnham.

 

The bed in the guestroom.

 

MKR's own bedroom – complete with original quilt – which she later shared with her second husband Norton Baskin.

 

The bathroom next to the bedroom.

 

The table in the dining room is not the original.

 

Finally, the outhouse, which directly faced the dining room. Our guide said that MKR always sat in the dining room chair directly opposite when entertaining guests so as to avoid them staring straight at it. I'm uncertain of the truth of this tale.

 

The park claims that this is 'the real Florida', and I certainly can't help thinking that this is light years away from the unfortunate tackiness of parts of Key West, or the beach areas, or the theme parks of Orlando: we swiftly moved away from the first, and didn't go anywhere near the second two. Yes, this park is very agreeable. My other Rawlings post:

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The Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings Journal