Listening for Madeleine: A Portrait of Madeleine L'Engle in Many Voices (edition 2012)

This book was so strange. It's a collection of interviews of people who knew Madeleine L'Engle at various points in her life. I came away from it discomfited- feeling like I'd been to a party where everyone was talking behind her back. It just felt unclean somehow- and not because the gossip is bad or damning, because on the whole it's quite positive. ( )

Madeleine L’Engle is, I would imagine, a somewhat popular author. However, in today’s day of boy wizards and sparkly vampires, it’s rare that you’ll find a younger reader who knows just who L’Engle is.

However, for the rest of us, who grew up immersed in fantasy stories written by devout theists, L’Engle is almost as familiar as Lewis or Tolkien.

In Listening for Madeleine, Leonard S. Marcus presents a series of interviews with people who were influenced through their respective relationships with L’Engle. Each person tells of the slice of their own life that intersected with the slice of L’Engle’s life, giving a close-up view of one person’s life in so many tiny bites.

For the most part, these interviews were flattering to L’Engle, toting her impressive presence, or her role as a mentor, mother, or other respected figure. Very few of the interviewers had anything bad to say, and those bad things were often nicely sandwiched between showering adoration.

Ultimately, Listening provides an excellent biography of such an unusual author (but what authors aren’t these days?), providing a chorus of voices that mostly reinforce, but sometimes contradict, like any story told by multiple narrators is oft to do.

While it is a delightful read, it certainly only is as much to those who wish to see the person behind the name “L’Engle,” and as such, may not appeal to all readers (especially if you’re unfamiliar with L’Engle) or even all fans (especially if you don’t like peeking into your favorite authors’ lives). I think I’m both of those things, though, so I enjoyed it. ( )

Reviewed in Shelf Awareness for Readers, 12/4/2012: http://www.shelf-awareness.com/ar/readers/2012-12-04/listening_for_madeleine:_a_... ( )