Four decades ago, today--I can hardly believe it, darlings!!!--it was a Sunday. Families all across America were scrambling to the neighborhood store, after church, or not, to get the Sunday paper; in many cases that included the New York Times.
For those of my age--I was 17 at the time--that Sunday was about to become
apocryphal. On the cover of the Times Magazine, pictured above, was a young girl about my age--about a lot of our ages, in fact. She was not only featured on the cover of the Magazine, she was not only THE cover story, she had written it herself. Her name was Joyce Maynard, and with this piece, not only did Joyce's life change, but so, too, did a lot of us, who read it at that age.
I will be frank. I read it with a flat out envy that rivaled Gladys Cooper in "The Song Of Bernadette." "Why isn't this ME?" I asked, then, and, to an extent, still feel. However, time, and having a voice, like with you, my girls, has reduced that initial sting.
The article was, I gave it credit, fairly comprehensive, in covering the minutiae that shaped the members of my peer group. But there was something underlyingly phony about it that I could detect. It seemed to paint too rosy a picture of our generation's journey through adolescence, which was one I certainly did not share.
And this article came back to bite me. I recall, when I became a college freshman (which Joyce was at the time) I took a course in the Theology Department called "Contemporary Moral Values." It was taught by the chair, George Devine, who looked like something out of Dickens, and had an ego so pervasive every textbook we used in the class was either written or edited by him. Nevertheless, Maynard's article, which had become famous by that point, and made her so, was the first outside reading we were assigned, and it triggered quite a bit of discussion. Some agreed with it, some did not. I was vociferous in dismissing it as not an accurate reflection on my generation, and when Devine condescendingly fired back with "Well, you are not going to Yale," which Joyce had been at the time she wrote it, I was bitch enough, even then, to fire back, at him, "Well, if I am not going to Yale, then you are not teaching there, either!" Which caused a stir you can imagine, and resulted in the only grade of "C" I got during my post high school education. Even though I turned in all my assignments and nothing bad could be said about them.
Inspired by the then rebutting of Jack Kilpatrick and Shana Alexander on the CBS
program, "60 Minutes," I saw Joyce and myself as the youthful coutnerparts to this, and I wanted my air time. So I fired off to the Times my rebuttal, which was quite lenghty, entitled "A 20 Year Old Looks Down On Life," stating I felt not so much superior to my generation, as that our lives had become desensitized to the point where we were the most selfish and uncaring group of youth one could imagine. I remembeer showing the esssay to one of my English teachers, who helped correct and edit it. I also recall him stating to me, "Your outlook on life is somewhat precocious." I sent it off to the Times, where it took so long to come back, I thought it would be published, and I started to feel excited. Alas, it came back, but with a nice personal note by the Editor (I want to say I think it was Arthur Sulzberger) who said they gave the article very careful consideration but unfortunately could not find a way to fit it into their schedule. I was disappointed, but, as some pointed out at the time, it appears I was taken seriously, and given a more personal rejection, rather than the "Thanks-No Thanks" writers usually get.
I took comfort from that, but since my purpose was to rebuttal Joyce herself, I decided to send the piece to her. I tracked her down. I believe to this day I spoke with her by phone, though she would not identify herself. I sent the piece to her then address of Hillsboro, NH, and I even enclosed a SASE, because I wanted her to send it back. She never did. To this day, I wonder what she thought of it, and if she still has it.
About twenty years later, I had the good fortune of meeting Joyce at a book reading and signing of her book, "At Home In The World." In that book, she owned up to a lot of the phoniness I and others sensed in her 1972 Times piece. Joyce graciously acknowledged me, and signed my book--I cherish it--but there was no time to bring up this time of our respective lives.
Yet, I think about all this, on today, the 40th anniversary of Joyce's piece.
It launched Joyce as a writer, may have launched a desire in me to be one, and while I am not nationally known, I am proud of what I have done with The Raving Queen, and grateful to all my readers for following my often frenetic exploits with me.
And, Joyce, darling, feel free to tune in! You just might get a kick out of it!
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