Mary Coin

by Marisa Silver Narrated by Eva Kaminsky, Alison Fraser, Mark Zeisler

Overview

In her first novel since The God of War, critically acclaimed author Marisa Silver takes Dorothea Lange's “Migrant Mother” photograph as inspiration for a breathtaking reinvention-a story of two women, one famous and one forgotten, and of the remarkable legacy of their singular encounter.

In 1936, a young mother resting by the side of a road in Central California is spontaneously photographed by a woman documenting the migrant laborers who have taken to America's farms in search of work-little personal information is exchanged and neither has any way of knowing that their chance encounter has produced the most iconic image of the Great Depression.

Three vibrant characters anchor the narrative of Mary Coin: Mary, the migrant mother herself, who emerges as a woman with deep reserves of courage and nerve, with private passions and carefully-guarded secrets. Vera Dare, the photographer wrestling with creative ambition who makes the choice to leave her children in order to pursue her work. And Walker Dodge, a present-day professor of cultural history, who discovers a family mystery embedded in the picture. In luminous, exquisitely observed prose, Silver creates an extraordinary tale from a brief moment in history, and reminds us that though a great photograph can capture the essence of a moment, it only scratches the surface of a life.

Editorial Reviews

APRIL 2013 - AudioFile

Three narrators give voice to Marisa Silver’s story, inspired by “Migrant Mother,” the iconic photograph that became the face of the Great Depression. The fictional female characters represent imagined lives for the photographer, Dorothea Lange, and the mother in the photo, Florence Owens Thompson. The third character, Walker Dodge, has no real-life counterpart but serves as a bridge to the twenty-first century. All three narrators recount their stories with unemotional and matter-of-fact deliveries that slowly reveal the “thousand-plus words” a picture can tell. Although the women’s stories sound real and bring the despair of the Depression to life, Walker’s story, through no fault of its capable narrator, seems extraneous and makes the book less believable. N.E.M. © AudioFile 2013, Portland, Maine

The New York Times Book Review - Antoine Wilson

As we follow Mary from her childhood in Oklahoma to California through a series of births and deaths and couplings, we experience a portrait of poverty not through the dreary accumulation of gritty detail, but via a series of direct shots to the heart. Silver…writes with an unadorned impressionism that never feels self-conscious or fussy. And she handles the passage of time—one of the central themes of Mary Coin, photographs stopping time as they do—so deftly it feels like magic. Part of what makes this novel so good is Silver's unwillingness to write facts free of the people living through them…History is not a succession of icons or frozen moments but of messy lives lived, of people doing what they can with what they've got. Therein lies the power of this novel, and the Novel; Silver wields it here with grace and devastating effectiveness.

Publishers Weekly

Starred Review.

Three characters whose lives span 90 years form the core of Silver's gorgeous third novel (after The God of War). Social historian Walker Dodge, as he sorts through the last items of his nearly empty childhood home, discovers a familial link to a famous photograph. Here, a real-life photo taken by Dorothea Lange in 1936 becomes a fictional photo taken by Vera Dare of Mary Coin. Silver fills in the untold story behind Lange's photo by revealing Vera and Mary's lives in vivid detail. Neither woman can reconcile herself with the Depression-era photo, yet they are intimately linked: each has children, husbands who leave them, and battles with cancer. This narrative of mid-century hope, loss, and disenchantment is both universal and deeply personal. Mary's problem with the truth of history and the stories told through objects leads her to make the hardest decision of her life, one confronted by Walker 75 years later. Silver has managed the difficult task of fleshing out history without glossing over its ugly truths. With writing that is sensual and rich, she shines a light on the parts of personal history not shared and stops time without destroying the moment. Agent: Henry Dunow; Dunow, Carlson & Lerner Literary Agency.
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From the Publisher

A New York Times bestseller
A Los Angeles Times bestseller

“Mary Coinis quite simply one of the best novels I have read in years.-'You'll know who you are when you start losing things,' says one character, and the story burnsin this quietly emphatic way, only to erupt in moments of excruciating pain and beauty. -In her portrayal of a time in American history when survival was often a day-to-day thing, Silver drills down to the absolute essentials: family, love, loss, the perpetual uncertainty of life.-Again and again I found myself wondering: How does she know that?-Silver's wisdom is rare, and her novel is the work of a master."

Ben Fountain, author of the 2012 National Book Award winner Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk

“Marisa Silver renders the soul of an iconic image, giving it moving life. Mary Coin is a soaring work of imagination, dedication and history.”

Mona Simpson, author of My Hollywood and Anywhere But Here

“An extraordinarily compassionate and wise novel,-Mary Coinimagines the life of Dorothea Lange's iconic "Migrant Mother." What emerges, in Silver's nuanced, resonant telling, is a poignant exploration of a single life that touches many others, and a powerful, moving portrait of America during the Great Depression. Silver is one of those preternaturally gifted writers who can with the lightest of touches make the reader enter a world that feels as fully real as the one around us.”

Meghan O'Rourke, author of The Long Goodbye

“Inspired by Migrant Mother, the iconic Depression-era photograph snapped by Dorothea Lange in 1936, Silver reimagines the lives of both the photographer and the subject....this dual portrait investigates the depths of the human spirit, exposing the inner reserves of will and desire hidden in both women....The luminously written, heart-wrenching-yet never maudlin-plot moves back and forth through time, as history professor Walker Dodge unpeels the layers of the photograph's hidden truths.”
Margaret Flanagan, Booklist

“[A] superb new novel....Silver's acute observations and understated style are evident here as are her matter-of-fact, unapologetic characters....mesmerizing...Silver has crafted a highly imaginative story that grabs the reader and won't let go. A must-read for Silver fans that is sure to win over many new followers; the acclaimed author's best work to date.”
Library Journal, STARRED REVIEW

“Marisa Silver's transfixing new novel...deftly sprinkles historical fact into her fictional narrative...a raw and emotional tale that leaves readers with a lingering question: Do photographs illuminate or blur the truth?”
O, The Oprah Magazine

“Gorgeous … This narrative of mid-century hope, loss, and disenchantment is both universal and deeply personal. With writing that is sensual and rich, [Silver] shines a light on the parts of personal history not shared and stops time without destroying the moment.”-Publisher's Weekly, STARRED REVIEW

“Mary Coin is the fictionalized story of [the “Migrant Mother” photograph], with Mary standing in for the actual subject, Florence Owens Thompson, and Vera Dare standing in for Dorothea Lange....a story ready and waiting for a fictionalized treatment. And Marisa Silver does it full, glorious justice. The story is compelling and honest, never sentimentalized or made easy, the writing exquisite in its luminous clarity. Silver accomplishes much in this work, including giving a human face and story to overwhelming disaster, just as the original photograph did....Silver's story is artful in a way that life often is not, carrying the story of one family through several generations....This novel is simply not to be missed. It is memorable.”
Historical Novels Review

“Silver is an evocative, precise writer...[she] smoothly integrates ephemeral period details...[Dorothea] Lange's photograph and the world it conjures up is inherently melodramatic. But Silver's writing isn't: she's restrained and smart. Throughout her novel, Silver tackles big questions about the morality of art and, in particular, the exploitation of subjects in photography.”-Maureen Corrigan, NPR

“Special recognition therefore goes to Marisa Silver, whose new novel, Mary Coin, fictionalizes the circumstances of the most famous image of the Depression...the book is a skillful, delicate apprehension of that photograph and its moment in history....[Silver is] a fine, delicate stylist, with an aphoristic style that fills even simple moments with meaning.”-USA Today

“Silver never rushes her story. Instead, she takes her time, setting down the particulars of her characters with palpable care….Silver's focus on the discretely biographical [produces] some truly lovely lines and deeply moving scenes…I read Mary Coin in a day-eager to know who this 32-year-old migrant mother was and willing to imagine how it must have felt to be known for all time for an instant in time, to be invaded by conjecture of both the casual and novelistic sort. A photograph is a single snap. In Mary Coin, Silver suggests all that echoes after that.”
Beth Kephart, Chicago Tribune

“[A] compelling, hard-to-put down story....As the cover of the novel suggests, the story emanates from the photograph, “Migrant Mother,” taken by Dorothea Lange in 1936...it continues to haunt us. Just as Silver's new novel will linger and haunt, attached as it is to the famous photo, which wonderfully deepens the story behind the making of history.”
Nina Schuyler, TheRumpus.net

“Silver's provocative new novel [is] a fictionalized, multigenerational account of [Dorothea] Lange's life and the life of her migrant farmworker subject. Silver writes beautifully and has meticulously researched her historical details, making for an informative, addictive book whose Depression-era narrative feels particularly relevant in today's recessionary times.”
People

“This resonant novel, teasing clues from a famous photograph, keeps us both looking and seeing. And admiring.”
Jeffrey Ann Goudie, Kansas City Star

“In Mary Coin, Silver takes a picture and spawns the proverbial thousand words many times over. The result is a stirring human portrait of two women and the times they lived in.”
Hector Tobar, Los Angeles Times

“Phenomenal … Silver writes with an unadorned impressionism that never feels self-conscious or fussy … History is not a succession of icons or frozen moments but of messy lives lived, of people doing what they can with what they've got. Therein lies the power of this novel, and the Novel: Silver wields it here with grace and devastating effectiveness.”-Antoine Wilson, New York Times Book Review

“Piercing … Silver is a marvelous writer, capable of stirring profound emotions one moment, intellectual reflection the next.”-Joanna Connors, Cleveland Plain Dealer

“Mary Coin is a lovely and deeply satisfying read … Each of these characters is fully realized and amazingly sympathetic; their cumulative story a worthy, nuanced tribute to an indelible image … In the end, she achieves the aims of her historian, discovering - explaining - how history actually happened to people.”-Eugenia Williamson, The Boston Globe

“What sets-Mary Coin- apart is that Mary's life pulses with real and relatable humanity before and after her moment as an artistic subject … Mary Coin has a personal history that reads like one of Silver's expertly drawn short stories, a series of disappointments and tragedies small and large rather than a dramatized biography …- Silver's writing, in Vera and Mary's glancing interaction (they meet only once, when she takes the picture) reads less as an indictment of Lange than as a sophisticated reading of her work, one with consequences extending into both fictional women's futures.”-Daniel D'Addario, The New Republic

Kirkus Reviews

The fictionalized lives of photographer Dorothea Lange and the Native American farm worker behind her famous Depression-era portrait "Migrant Mother." While adhering closely to the facts of the real women's lives, Silver (The God of War, 2008, etc.) renames them--Lange becomes Vera Dare; her subject, Florence Owens Thompson, becomes Mary Coin--and frames their stories within a wholly fictional conceit: Social historian Walker Dodge is grappling with his role as a divorced father when he begins researching the history of his family, successful California fruit growers, after the death of his uncommunicative father. Walker, who coincidentally teaches college students how to look at photographs, opens and closes the novel in 2011, but the real focus is on the two women. Mary grows up on an Oklahoma farm, raised by her tough but loving Cherokee mother after her alcoholic white father's death. At 17, she marries Toby Coin, and they head to California where he works in sawmills and she has one baby after another. By 1929, a fire has burned down the mill and their home. After Toby dies, Mary picks fruit to support her children. After an affair with a farm owner's son, she has another baby that she is nursing near her broken-down car the day in 1936 when Vera Dare takes her picture. Vera, who still limps from the polio she suffered as a child, has spent the 1920s in San Francisco as a society photographer. Her financial security has collapsed by the early 1930s, along with her marriage to a flamboyant, womanizing painter. By the time she runs across Mary, Vera has farmed out her two sons to travel the countryside taking pictures to document rural poverty for FDR's Resettlement Administration. When she photographs Mary, Vera has no idea the image will take on a life of its own. Walker's tacked-on connection to the photograph seems a calculated attempt to add sexual intrigue to what is otherwise a disappointingly plodding account that sheds no new light on either the photographer or her subject.

Product Details

BN ID:	2940172164514
Publisher:	Penguin Random House
Publication date:	03/07/2013
Edition description:	Unabridged

Read an Excerpt

At first she thought someone had released a flock of birds into the room. The museum gallery whispered with the sound of wings and flight and she thought of the starlings wheeling through the flat Oklahoma sky, a solid flag of them waving in the currents of a wind. Was that seventy years ago? More?... A child’s cry broke through. Mary, always keen to a child’s distress, turned towards the sound. And there, across the room, hung the familiar charcoal gray shapes of the image that shadowed her life…. The gallery had grown quieter and, for a moment, Mary was alone with the picture. She saw her reflection in the glass. There they were. Two women named Mary Coin. If they met on the street in the high heat of a summer’s afternoon, they would be polite in the old fashioned way to show they meant one another no harm. “Hello,” they would say in passing. “My, but isn’t it a wretched day?”

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