Tome on Rich worthy read

SHE TOOK TO THE WOODS by Alice Arlen, DownEast Books, 2000, 310 pages, $16.95.

Louise Dickinson Rich fans are in for a treat. In a first-ever biography, Alice Arlen brings a belated encore of Rich’s works to readers hungry for more of the likes of “We Took to the Woods,” her celebrated memoir of a pioneering life in Maine. Backed by letters, a diary and a writer’s journal, Arlen’s inclusion of unpublished works by Rich are easily the best reason to read this book.

Rich is probably best known for “Woods,” a memoir published in 1942 in which she describes her years at Forest Lodge, a former summer camp located deep in the woods of the Rangeley Lakes region. “Woods” was so successful that Rich followed suit with “Happy the Land,” “My Neck of the Woods” and “The Peninsula,” all relating tales of her life in Maine.

In the biography, Arlen effectively combines her research with Rich’s own writings to create a chronology that’s easy to read and rich with the author’s musings.

The only downside to relying so heavily on Rich’s own works is that the reader is denied a more objective look at the woman behind the writer. For example, Arlen notes that during certain periods of her life, Rich drank heavily, sometimes referred to by Rich as having a “bad day.” But how much she drank, for how long and why are investigated only superficially. Was it just a part of the general lifestyle or a reaction to certain events? Or, was Rich an alcoholic, with periods of time in control and periods out of control? Arlen never really gives a sense of whether Rich’s drinking was or was not an issue in her life.

Likewise, when Arlen uncovers a negative view of Rich, she tends to breezily dismiss it, as though afraid to offend loyal fans or family. This happens when she relates the 1966 Ellsworth American story of Rich backing into a dry-docked lobster boat and subsequently being booked for driving under the influence. The newspaper account concludes with an example of Rich’s dry wit, as she wonders whether the officer will inform her dinner hosts that she’s in jail.

Following the newspaper summary, Arlen notes observations made by area residents, both “detractors” and “admirers,” who offer disparate views of Rich: snob or “uninterested in social climbing,” opinionated “part-time lush” or “intelligent individualist with sharp wit and silver pen”? Such contradictions are the stuff of a good biography, and while the reader will agree with Arlen that the “truth” is likely “on both sides,” the reader also depends on the biographer to research those sides and offer a more objective and integrated point of view. Arlen’s loyalty to Rich hampers her from giving weight to information that might be seen as negative or intrusive. Thus, one is left wondering: So, who was the real Louise Dickinson Rich?

In another example, Arlen almost reluctantly shares an intriguing observation made by a “visitor,” who portrays a different side of Rich, a side that seems to complicate the woman as revealed by her own writings. If anything, it makes her more interesting, but there’s no follow-through to the visitor’s uncomplimentary view that during a visit to the lodge, Rich “showed up wearing high heels, black slacks, a green sweater, hair all done up and a long cigarette holder. Ralph [Rich’s husband] was down by the dam in the same old clothes I remembered from six years before. He had white hair and we talked a bit about fishing. He didn’t seem to want any part of what was going on. She was a snob, turned her back and wouldn’t talk to me twice.”

Rather than pursue the darker side of Rich, Arlen offers a quasi-apology, noting: “It is understandable that Louise would want to celebrate after at least a half dozen years of financial deprivation, but, as is universally acknowledged, getting all you desire can have its drawbacks. … She even tried on a 40-year-old-famous-author persona (shades of her high school drama days?) when deluged with fame and celebrity seekers.” Such statements trivialize Rich, though that clearly is not Arlen’s intention.

Aside from these concerns, what makes this first biography of Rich a worthwhile read are the unpublished pieces and letters that offer the remarkable insights of a woman coming to terms with old age. We see in these writings the same gumption that carried the writer through periods of poverty and physical hardship without feeling sorry for herself. We see that kind of “buck up and carry on” mentality so well expressed by Rich and writers of her generation, the mind-set that stands in such contrast to the me generation that followed. We see our grandmothers and mothers, and there’s something wonderful about that.

In the final piece of unpublished prose included in Arlen’s book, Rich writes in the late 1970s of “Old Age, Desolation and Women Alone.” She begins by remembering the old women she visited as a child, their “bitter-sweet smiles” and how they “had come to terms with loneliness … learned to accept with wry humor the solitary lives that were the price of independence.” She goes on to reflect that she understands these women better now, as she faces her own solitary years:

“I know about the warm comfort of that cat on a bitter winter night, snuggled on the bed in the small of the back or the crook of the knees. I know about fighting the temptation to slap together a sandwich and brew a cup of tea to eat, standing up in the kitchen, instead of getting out a placemat and the silver and china, preparing a decent meal and perhaps reading while eating it, to give a semblance of civilized company. I know about playing solitaire and scrambling the cards together to stuff into a drawer when someone knocks at the door, lest whoever it is decides I’m in my dotage or very hard-up for an occupation. I know about watching for the mail, but not running right out to the mailbox for fear someone might observe and think that’ s all I had to live for. People like us can’t abide even a whiff of pity in ourselves or others.”

This is vintage Louise Dickinson Rich, but more than that, it is a connection to another generation, and easily worth the price of the book.