THE SECRET LIFE OF THE LONELY DOLL

New York journalist Nathan rescues from oblivion the enigmatic author of a beloved, politically incorrect children's book.

Dare Wright died at age 86 in a state nursing home on Roosevelt Island.That was in 2001—44 years after the publication of The Lonely Doll launched her popular (and exceedingly weird) children’s book series. Born in Canada, Wright was brought up mostly in Cleveland, where her divorced mother Edie tenaciously made a living as a portrait painter. Dare enjoyed a fairly glamorous adult life in Manhattan in the ’50s and ’60s, first as a photographer, fashion model, and actress, then as the author of numerous Edith and the Bears books. Yet the story Nathan doggedly pursues is of the steely umbilical bond between artistically driven, egotistical mother and beautiful, submissive, obedient daughter. Edie and Dare did everything together: they traveled as a pair, collaborated in work, fended off importunate admirers, even slept in the same bed. Their parents’ 1919 divorce traumatized both four-year-old Dare and her seven-year-old brother Blaine, who was sent away to live with his alcoholic father. Only in their late 20s did the siblings finally reunite, spending long vacations together in upstate New York and negotiating prickly truces between son and mother, who vied for Dare’s attention. This sad, triangular drama was enacted for the rest of their lives, as none of the Wrights seemed to need intimacy outside the threesome. Dare’s fetish for her doll, Edith—funny how similar that name is to Mom’s—led her to develop, with Edie’s help, a story in photographs (complete with spanking scenes), which she painstakingly composed like a fashion shoot. Legions of fans cherished The Lonely Doll and subsequent books, though their affection couldn’t ease Dare’s bitter old age, soaked in alcohol following Edie’s and Blaine’s deaths. Nathan’s straightforward account somewhat dryly sticks to the facts, allowing the curious and very lovely photographs that Dare and her mother took of each other over a lifetime to tell much of the story.

Fascinating mother-daughter symbiosis makes this a Freudian feast.