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Watch for Kathleen Jones' groundbreaking biography of Mansfield due out soon! For information see
Kathleen Jones Make a contribution to literary history. Become a member of the newly formed Katherine Mansfield Society linking scholars, students, teachers, writers, and readers interested in Mansfield's life and writing. For more information visit
The Katherine Mansfield Society
Readers Praise Katherine's Wish:
A Masterpiece! Among Best Books for 2008
One would not have believed it possible for any author to crystallize the essence of the ever-elusive and mystically-brilliant Katherine Mansfield into a wholly accurate account of her final days within the genre of literary fiction. Yet, Linda Lappin has done it with grace, style, elegance, rivetting prose (at times so gorgeously poetic it rivals the great writing of Mansfield herself). Indeed, the entire aesthetic of the book is a work of art - from the cover art, layout to the last page - all is so beautifully rendered. This book deserves recognition from the highest order from those with the clout to rank it among the best books written in 2008...or any time, readers are lucky enough to purchase a classic for all seasons. "Katherine's Wish" for that stature of her life and work is most certainly granted here. --Katherine Graham, Vine Voice
From the Historical Novel Review
KATHERINE’S WISH Linda Lappin, Wordcraft of Oregon, 2008,
$15.00, pb, 228pp, 9781877655586
Bandol, France, 1918. A frail young woman
boards a military train, coughing discreetly into
her handkerchief. The throng of war-weary
soldiers is unaware she is a famous English
author traveling south to fight the ravages of
tuberculosis. Indeed, she tells them a story to
justify traveling alone: she is going to meet her
“wounded husband.”
Katherine Mansfield was very good with
stories, and this one satisfies, to her relief. She
misses her real husband, John Middleton Murry,
at home in England carrying on with his work as
an esteemed literary critic. Unaware how ill and
lonely she would be, he forwards her books to
be read and reviewed during her convalescence.
Murry sees their relationship as the merging
of two great minds with a combined genius
that would assure them a place in history. It
became apparent that her health was in danger
and sending her to France for a “cure” removed
him from any bother, not being a man to stop
working to tend a sick wife.
Katherine was a most determined writer,
defying mercurial comments by former friend
D. H. Lawrence (who despised her “ill health”)
and the disdain of the social coterie of Lady
Ottoline, a woman who fêted the usual literary
suspects known as the Bloomsberries. For a
time, Virginia Woolf became Katherine’s friend,
albeit reservedly, as the two discussed their
mutual passion for writing.
Everyone involved in Katherine’s life,
including her underappreciated friend and
supplicant Ida Baker, who clung to serving her
genius despite rebuffs, is presented as they may
have appeared in her personal diary. Capturing
the latter part of Katherine’s life and world, the
author brings vivid life to this novel, which reads
like a literary biography of Katherine Mansfield
and her contemporaries. --Tess Allegra
Katherine's Wish a new novel by Linda Lappin
In August 1922 Katherine Mansfield made a momentous decision to withdraw temporarily from her former life in order to spend a period of self-study and reflection at Gurdjieff's Institute for the Harmonious Development of Man in Fontainebleau outside Paris.
Deep spiritual hunger, bitter disappointment in her husband, John Middleton Murry's inability to understand her new needs dictated by failing health, exhaustion after an extraordinarily fertile phase of creativity, all have been cited by biographers as among Mansfield's motivations for this decision which may have baffled friends and admirers at the time.
Katherine's Wish follows the final phase of Mansfield's life, starting from the moment she was diagnosed with TB till her flight to Fontainebleau in Oct. 1922. The novel focuses on Katherine, her companion Ida Baker, and her husband John Middleton Murry. Minor characters include D.H. Lawrence, Virginia Woolf, SS Kotelianski, Orage and Ouspenski.
Discover the Bloomsbury- Paris connection.
Follow in the footsteps of Virginia Woolf, Katherine Mansfield, and other Bloomsberries in Paris with Michael Barker. This Paris-based British architect and writer conducts private tours of the secret haunts of bohemian Paris for small groups and individuals. Visit art studios of great masters and little-known museums, drink and dine at legendary cafes, immerse yourself in the authentic atmosphere of "retro" Paris while discovering its history and myths, and rubbing shoulders with its illustrious and notorious ghosts. Combining a scholar's knowledge of the city with a lively presentation style, Mr. Barker is an ideal tour leader for those seeking something more than guidebooks can offer.
See
www.memorablecitytours.com
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She reads and readsCanadian blog focusing on women's fiction
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 Katherine's Wish Lappin's new novel about the lives of Katherine Mansfield, Ida Constance Baker, and John Middleton Murry ISBN 978-1-877655-58-6 Review from Perigee
Full of early 20th century unrest and color, Katherine's Wish transports us to war-era Europe, where the ailing Katherine Mansfield frequently travels to escape Britain's harsh winters. Ruthlessly compelled by her creative urges, Mansfield rejects conventional treatment for her tuberculosis, appreciating that a sanatorium denies her solitude and imposes a rest cure, both of which would prevent her from writing. She is an artist, stalked by poverty and disease, with a Keatsian drive to "[glean her] teeming brain" before time runs out, writing more than twenty-three short stories, including the frequently anthologized "Miss Brill," between 1918 and her death in 1924. For Mansfield, "Work was the only consolation for the new state of things. Writing was a second breath, a second chance."
It took over twenty years for novelist Linda Lappin to complete her fictional biography on Katherine Mansfield, and the payoff for us is a captivating tale of Katherine's Wish to live, chronicling the period when she became intensely aware of her mortality and rebelled against the disease that eventually consumed her, the period that came to define her as a fighter with savage courage—the last five years of her life. A master story-teller, Lappin weaves a tale that is triumphant, genuine and tender in its unfolding. With vivid details and imagery born of careful research, she brings Mansfield to life, her voice so clear and authentic we are convinced that she is more than Lappin's character. She is Mansfield: sexually reckless, socially excitable, temperamentally damaged, spiteful and cruel, appealing and vulnerable. She is Mansfield—a tragic and unconventional heroine.
Lappin tells Mansfield's story through an old Shakespearean technique—various points of view. Katherine's Wish is a 3rd person account fashioned from Mansfield's life, letters, and journal entries as well as those of her philandering and egocentric husband, John Middleton Murry, and her irritating but loyal companion, Ida Constance Baker. The interplay of these three differing perspectives lends credibility to Lappin's depiction of her characters, particularly Mansfield, reducing what in so many other fictional biographies feels like forced or affected character development. We see Mansfield for what she was—a flawed and self-absorbed human being as are most artists. Ego feeds art. Self-absorption is just one of the means used to access that elusive place where art lives within the meditating psyche. And because we recognize the value and genius of this particular artist cut down at only 34, we forgive Mansfield her selfish egotism. In fact, we care about her and wonder what more she might have contributed to literature had she not died so young.
Lappin's skillful blend of fact and fiction leaves us entertaining the possibility that Katherine's Wish is more biography than novel. It is an honest, uncompromising, and insightful view into Mansfield, the culture that molded her, and the people who surrounded her. It is also a fast-paced and fully rewarding read.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY:
R.A. Rycraft's work has appeared in PIF Magazine, VerbSap, The MacGuffin, and Calyx. Chair of the English Department at Mt. San Jacinto College in Menifee, CA, Rycraft earned her BA and MA degrees in Literature and Writing Studies at California State University, San Marcos, and her MFA at Oregon's Pacific University. She serves as Perigee's Non-Fiction Editor.
Praise from the Literary Review KATHERINE’S WISH Linda Lappin. Katherine’s Wish.
La Grande, Oregon: Wordcraft of Oregon, 2008.
The more Katherine Mansfield approaches death, the more she comes to life in Linda Lappin’s Katherine’s Wish. That’s not to say that she isn’t a vivid character from the very first paragraphs of the novel, in 1918, on a train pulling its way through a blizzard, trapped in a compartment “pervaded by the sickening smell of mothballs, perspiration, and wet galoshes,” taking “short, tremulous breaths to keep herself from coughing.” This initial image of her in a coffin-like carriage on a frantic journey to Mediterranean sun, in pain, immersed in white embodies her condition and the struggles she will face throughout the next four years in a desperate and futile effort to stay alive.
Many luminaries populate the novel, from D.H. Lawrence and Virginia Woolf to the more rarified characters, such as Chekhov translator S.S. Koteliansky, Lady Ottoline, and P.D. Ouspensky, along with Katherine’s intimates, her wealthy, distant father, Ida Constance Baker, her smitten, service companion since childhood, her self-absorbed, philandering husband, John Middleton Murry, and his mistresses.
Lappin spent nearly two decades researching and writing Katherine’s Wish, as evidenced by the consequent specificity and vivid details. The interiors of the many rooms and the exteriors of the many landscapes are described with a cinematic richness: “This cool, wet August had plumped the blackberries on the bushes along the garden wall. She could almost taste their tartness with her eyes, but the leaves of the willows were edged in brown . . .” This is hardly a typical costume drama, decorated with dusty artifacts and burdened by the mythology of its famous protagonists.
Of particular note is Lappin’s ability to create original portrayals of Woolf and Lawrence, a fresh way of seeing people whose identities are almost clichés, as in this meeting between Mansfield and Woolf:
Conversations with Virginia were agonizingly slow to ignite. One had to break through the cocoon of isolation Virginia spun around herself, with her perfect demeanor, her flawless chitchat, even those ludicrous hats and dresses she wore were a deterrent to keeping others from coming too close.
But most crucial is the evocation of Katherine’s consumption, the painful stages of her dying, her struggles for survival, her growing debilitation. Lappin reveals the spots on the lungs, the dysentery and fevers, the “ominous heaving rumble” of her coughing. Ultimately, she makes readers care about a writer dead for more than eighty years, and share Katherine’s own wish that she could live forever. Lappin’s achievement is to succeed where medicine failed and, through her words, give Katherine Mansfield ongoing life. --Walter Cummins
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