In 1944, Norma Jeane Dougherty’s husband James was shipped out to World War II’s Pacific theatre. Norma Jeane, like so many soldier wives, moved in with her in-laws and went to work at the Radio Plane factory. The Radio Plane Company manufactured small radio-controlled airplanes that Army gunners used for target practice. Dougherty’s mother was…
Goodness leaps out at you in the unlikeliest places, in Ann Patchett’s books. ‘There are tremendous benefits to stability in family, and there are benefits to chaos… in the end, I don’t think there’s any family that’s not going to bruise,’ says Patchett, 62. Bel Canto (2001), which won the Women’s Prize (then called the…
It was a weeknight in Helsinki, cold in the way Finnish spring evenings stubbornly insist on being, and I was filing into a modest cinema. My phone was off. I had no beverage, notebook or recorder. At the door, I was handed a padded black eye mask. A young man reminded us, pleasantly but firmly:…
