Looking for Betty MacDonald, by Paula Becker

The subtitle of this new biography is "The Egg, The Plague, Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle, and I." I first learned about it from Constance Martin, who blogs at Staircase Wit. I immediately broke out a Barnes & Noble gift card that I had been hoarding, to order a copy.

The author, Paula Becker, is a staff historian at HistoryLink.org, an on-line encyclopedia of Washington State history. (I lived in Washington State for many years, and I wish we'd had this resource when I was in school.) As I did, she first met Betty MacDonald as a child, through her "Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle books." As I did too, she came to MacDonald's books for grown-ups as an adult herself, and was quickly captivated. Living in Seattle, MacDonald's home for many years, Ms. Becker began, in the words of the title, looking for Betty MacDonald. She traced the homes she lived in, she met people who knew her. And when she realized there was no biography of this author, she wrote one.

At the beginning of this treasure hunt, I wanted to find Betty. By journey's end, I wanted others to find her, this young woman whose face was as familiar during the 1940s and 1950s as any movie star's, whose voice was the first - male or female - to entrance readers around the planet with a story deeply rooted in the great Pacific Northwest. I wanted none of her story lost. And I wanted modern readers - who knew her for the Piggle-Wiggles, if they knew her at all - to understand how richly Betty MacDonald deserved to be found.

I have read all four of Betty MacDonald's memoirs, more than once (and written briefly about them). I felt that I had the basic outline of her life straight in my mind. For me, much of the interest in this book was learning about the real life lived, and how MacDonald transmuted that into her stories, what she changed or deleted, and why. Her last memoir, Onions in the Stew, was published in 1955. Ms. Becker carries the story of MacDonald's life through the difficult years that followed, to her death from ovarian cancer in 1958. She was only 50. I can't help wondering what she might have written, given time and health.

The book has wonderful illustrations, of Betty's family (I felt I knew them already, from her books), and also of the homes where she lived. Ms. Becker's research took her all over the west and to New York as well. I envied her access to MacDonald's family members, and above all to MacDonald's archives. From the chapter describing her research, it sounds like she might have been the first to open the boxes and file folders in fifty years or more. It also sounds like Betty MacDonald was as funny and snarky in her letters as in her books, and I'd love to read a collection of them. I hope that her heirs will consider donating the collection to a library or archives, so they can be preserved and protected.

For anyone who doesn't know Betty MacDonald, or only knows Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle (as wonderful as she is) this would be a wonderful introduction. Well-written and engaging, it conveys Ms. Becker's enthusiasm for Betty MacDonald and her books. It gives a real sense of the person behind the books. I can almost guarantee it will send people off in search of the books they haven't read yet. It certainly makes me want to pull them all off the shelf again. The meticulous bibliography also added a book to my reading list, Much Laughter, a Few Tears: Memoirs of a Woman's Friendship with Betty MacDonald and Her Family, by Blanche Caffiere. Thanks again to Constance, I have also added one of MacDonald's children's books, Nancy and Plum, which I somehow missed growing up.

As it happens, I have an extra copy of Betty MacDonald's third memoir, Anybody Can Do Anything. I came across a U.S. first edition recently, and I couldn't resist buying it. I would be happy to share the British edition that I found first. If you'd like it, just send me an email (maylisa66 at earthlink dot net). If I get more than one interested reader, I'll draw names.