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'Moonflower Vine' in bloom once again
For a few months after its publication in December, 1962, The Moonflower Vine was one of the flowers of the literary world. It spent four months on The New York Times bestseller list, alongside Raise High the Roof Beam, Carpenters by J.D. Salinger, and John Updike's The Centaur. It was a main selection of two major book clubs, and was published in eight other countries and appeared as a Reader's Digest Condensed Book, a sure sign of mid-20th century success.
"The reviews were rapturous. 'Once in a great, great while comes a new book that makes you thankful you know how to read,' wrote one besotted critic in the San Francisco Call-Bulletin. 'The Moonflower Vine is just such a book.'"
The Denver Post compared it to To Kill a Mockingbird, published two years earlier.
"The Moonflower Vine's season in the sun however was brief. After the excitement of its first publication, the book faded into obscurity, like so many other former bestsellers.
"Aside from two brief paperback revivals in the late '70s and '80s, the The Moonflower Vine was largely forgotten, except among the few readers who discovered musty copies at library sales or abandoned in vacation rental homes.
"They formed a small but passionate cult. One of those acolytes was the novelist Jane Smiley, who included The Moonflower Vine on her reading list of 100 novels in her 2005 book, 13 Ways of Looking at the Novel."
Carleton died in 1999. She never published another novel.
Aimee Levitt told me things I wasn't aware of. For example, Carleton wrote her first poem as a Campfire Girl. Carleton and her book continue to grow as you proceed. If you knew her, you find that you didn't know her. She isn't hiding, she's just a woman with many sides, a will-of-the-wisp.
It seems everyone who encounters Jetta Carleton's story adds something to it. Levitt told me it must have been an honor to have known Carleton. Indeed it was for me, as well as for my wife, Laura. We've never forgotten the evening we dined with her at her Santa Fe home. She was living alone with two dogs. They spent the evening barking at me, but not the women. They were not man's best friend. Her husband, Jene, had died some time before. People who knew them well said they had a solid marriage. They complemented one another. One person told me they were better together than alone. They took care of one another.
Our friend Larry Calloway was the executor of her estate. He was the one who discovered that Carleton had written a second novel. It was in manuscript form and will be published soon. It's a good story, but not as good a story as The Moonflower Vine.
Charlie Langdon is the Herald's senior critic. He can be found at langdons@gobrainstorm.net.
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