A Drowned Maiden’s Hair: A Melodrama
by Laura Amy Schlitz
2006 Cybils Award for Middle Grade Fiction
On the morning of the best day of her life, Maud Flynn was locked in the outhouse, singing “The Battle Hymn of the Republic.”So begins a wondrous book. I was fully expecting not to enjoy this title. I chose it as part of the reading challenge in which I am participating, but for some reason everything that I had read about it did not seem appealing. So why did I pick it? I don’t know. But I am glad I did. It covers subjects that have long fascinated me.
Eleven year old Maud Mary Flynn is an orphan housed at the Barbary Asylum for Female Orphans. She is small for her age and not considered pretty - that is she doesn’t have blond curls and a sweet face. She is intelligent, rebellious, stubborn, unaccommodating, bitter and not afraid to show or state her opinions. The asylum lives up to its name - Barbary for barbarous.
Then one glorious day, against all odds, Maud is adopted! The elderly Hawthorne sisters come to the orphanage to adopt a little girl; and Hyacinth Hawthorne, after hearing Maud sing in the outhouse, chooses Maud. Maud is given wonderful clothes, wonderful food, and access to wonderful books. But, when she reaches the Hawthorne house, she learns that she is to be a hidden child. No one other than the sisters and their deaf mute servant would know of her existence. She is to remain inside the house unseen and unheard by neighbors or passers by.
'Maudy, do you remember what you said earlier today - about how you would do whatever we asked of you? . . . Do you like secrets, Maud?’ . . . Hyacinth lowered her voice mysteriously. ‘You see, Maud, Judith and I have a secret. If you were to go to school, that secret might come out. In a little while, once we are sure of you, we will tell you everything, but first we have to make sure we can trust you. Later on, we’ll ask you to help us with our work.’Their work is spiritualism. Spiritualism is a religious movement prominent from the 1860’s through the 1920’s. It is a movement that began in the United States growing out of a discontent with established churches that did little to combat slavery or to advance the cause of women’s rights. Women were particularly drawn to spiritualism because this was one area that gave them important roles and made it permissible for them to speak authoritatively before mixed public audiences. The basic premise of spiritualism is exactly what its name implies - the belief that communication with the spirits of the dead is possible. The amazing Houdini exposed many spiritualists as frauds. The beloved creator of Sherlock Holmes, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, was an ardent believer. In a pre-technological time, audiences were entranced by supposedly disembodied voices, swinging chandeliers, rocking tables, and floating ghostly figures.
As you can imagine, fraud was rampant. And among the frauds were Judith and Hyacinth Hawthorne. A third Hawthorne sister, Victoria, believed in spiritualism but refused to participate in the work of her sisters. Maud, a small child with a beautiful voice who could easily be hidden under a table and who was trained to move silently, was groomed to be their source of voices, moving objects, and ghostly figures as they posed as Spiritualists for financial gain.
Hyacinth’s target for financial security was the wealthy widow Eleanor Lambert whose daughter Caroline had drowned. Caroline died after a quarrel with her mother who was now desperate to know that her daughter could forgive her. Maud was to convince Mrs. Lambert that this was so. Of course, Caroline supposedly had been an angelic blond child; and Maud was dark haired and certainly not angelic. How she is transformed to mimic Caroline is a fascinating tale. But most fascinating is the parallel tale of the real Maud’s relationship with Eleanor Lambert and surprisingly with Caroline.
The sub title of this novel is A Melodrama which is defined by my trusty dictionary as a work characterized by extravagant theatricality and the predominance of plot and physical action over characterization. The emotional reaction of the audience is stressed. Melodramas have stock characters: the hero, the villain, the damsel in distress. And above all, they have a happy ending. The happy ending of A Drowned Maiden’s Hair is a long time coming but well worth the wait.
In My Book . . . A Drowned Maiden’s Hair: A Melodrama is a complex mystery, a compelling drama, and a clever morality tale - crime doesn’t pay; but good things can come out a bad situation.
Side Note: One of my favorite bloggers always comments on the covers of the books she reviews. The cover of A Drowned Maiden’s Hair is suitably mysterious - dark and brooding with the hint of a ghost whose image contains a hint concerning one of the book’s surprises. But Maud’s feet bother me. They are very strange feet!
