Patricia Clapp Makes Me Love America

There are certain writers that I think I love because when I reread their books from my teen years they TAKE ME BACK! These are the books that I read, not so much because the writing is good (although I know for a fact that Marilyn Singer, Robin McKinley and Maud Hart Lovelace all hold up) but because the stories are so entrenched in my teen experience that I suspect I can't separate my inner 14 year old from the quality of the writing.

I am trying to reread the books of my youth with a modern eye. I can't wait to reread SUMMER OF MY GERMANSOLDIER. It seemed earth-changing to me as a young woman. They had Jewish people in the SOUTH?? During WWII? I thought they all lived with the All of a Kind Family on the Lower East Side. Or on the Upper West Side with the Norma Klein girls whose stories I used to have to hide under my bed! (I was seriously obsessed with New York and desperately wanted to be Jewish when I was in middle school. Someday I will tell the story about when we moved from Ohio to Long Island and I met my gym partner, Laura Greenberg. Most awkward-ly well-meaning-ly pro-semitic conversation ever.)

I have a bunch of one-offs I have loved for years. RONNIE AND ROSEY by Julie Angell, TUNE IN YESTERDAY by the gloriously named T. Ernesto Bethancourt and THE BOOK OF PHOEBE by Mary-Ann Tirone Smith.

Then there are the authors where I read some, but not all, of their books. I read and re-read the ones at my library, but didn't have access to all of them. There are the well-known classics of Beverly Cleary, Edward Eager and, I would argue, Ellen Conford. And then there's my beloved American history guide – Patricia Clapp.

First of all, did you know that CONSTANCE: A STORY OF EARLY PLYMOUTH was her first book and she wrote it when she was 56? And it was a runner-up for the National Book Award for Children's Books? What a great second, or third act for Mrs. Clapp! And how does she not have a wikipedia page? I find it hard to believe that the lovely girl from my town who came in third on American Idol has 3000+ words and yet the woman who gave the world page 70 of I'M DEBORAH SAMPSON has nary a mention.

To begin, CONSTANCE. In 1988 I interviewed to be an historical interpreter at Plimoth Plantation in

Plymouth, Mass. One of the bennies of going to interview is that I got a free day-pass to the site. I wandered around, it was beautiful. I was pretty sure I wasn't going to take the job – it would have meant a hour plus commute. But I had to go to Plimoth after having spent so many hours there with my pal Constance as a kid.

Imagine my joy when I MET Constance Hopkins Snow and told her I had read a book about her. She was very dismissive and said something like, “Many half-truths are told by people claiming to know me.” Which clearly showed she was a dud. I would have been like - “Let me tell you about the time the Edwards dueled nearly to the death for my love!”

I just reread CONSTANCE around Thanksgiving this year. I don't connect with Constance as a character, but I respect and admire her and other than some ham-handed Native American descriptions, it was till A-OK with me.

I AM DEBORAH SAMPSON – good Lord, this book was steamy. I mean, not the parts with the war, or the lonliness of colonial poverty, but the Deborah and Robbie love story was smokin'! The used copy I bought a few years ago flips right open to page 70 and it is an ex-libris book from the Sacramento Public Library, so clearly I was not the only historical horn-dog of the late 1970s...

Rereadng this last month I was surprised at how much better it was than I remembered it. I read it as an adolescent obsessed with the romance, but the details about colonial life were fascinating to me as an old bag. Deborah's life being taken in by an emotionally distant relative, her friendship with the local pastor, her eventual boarding with a loving family and her daring to defy gender roles to join the fight that took her beloved away were all beautifully rendered. I remain a huge fan.

I am in the midst of reading JANE-EMILY – a ghost story set in Lynn, Massachusetts, a mere two towns over from where I now reside. I liked it fine as a kid, but it was kind of an also-ran next to CONSTANCE and DEBORAH. Maybe because the main character is neither Jane nor Emily, but rather 18 year old Louisa, Jane's aunt. Louisa has had to leave her Edwardian-hipster boyfriend Martin to take her orphaned niece Jane to stay with Jane's grandmother Mrs. Canfield in her hella-haunted house in Lynn.

The ghostly presence is Emily – a spoiled brat who died of self-inflicted pneumonia when she was 12-ish. Emily sucks. Alive or dead, she is a treacherous little beastie – a melter of wax doll faces and a hogger of reflecting garden balls. She did the world a favor by expiring early, but she has a hold on Jane that is pretty creepy.

I am noticing the turn-of-the-20th-century details more this time around. I am currently on page 87 of my modern-day reread. So far, no hot humping on the farm a la DEBORAH, but there is a slightly mansplainy doctor who is taking an interest in Louisa who seems promising. I'll power through.

My love for Patricia Clapp remains constant. (Ha! Get it? Like Constance?) If you will excuse me, I think I will go try to make a wikipedia page for her.