The audio starts with author and poet Doris Dana reading a portrait of Marguerite Young, based on an article published in Changes magazine by Erica Duncan. At the 6:28 mark, Actress Betty Lou Holland reads Chapter 1 of Miss MacIntosh, My Darling by Marguerite Young.

A New York City native, Holland (1926-2011) was an actress best known for her work on Broadway. She performed in numerous comedies including Annie Get Your Gun and Goodbye, Mister Fancy. In the 1950’s she transitioned to the silver screen, where she starred in The Man in the Net and John Cromwell’s The Goddess.

Often compared to James Joyce’s Finnegans Wake, Young’s novel resonates with unique and poignant observations of American culture, in an epic and surrealist poetic prose. It took the under-recognized, enigmatic and iconoclastic author eighteen years of work to complete this dense, two volume novel.

 © copyright Charles Ruas 2023