Her words could make a cat dance

1972 was a hellacious roller-coaster for this nation. What with Nixon and his knaves conspiring to cover up their felonies, race riots, the rise of myriad “liberation” movements, and anti-establishment protesters of which many would go on to become establishment capitalists, greedy Gordon Geckos, and pin-striped cowboys responsible for the collapse of workers’ pensions and idiotic investments.

On Tremont Road, one block west of where I grew up in Evansville, Indiana, there lived a woman, who by her own self-effacing description, was a “frumpy housewife.” She was living a typical middle-class demographic. A husband; two daughters, who I attended school with, and all of the proverbial qualities assigned to families in those days. She also attended Evansville College (now the University of Evansville) and studied a wide range of subjects. She was a voracious reader.

But a few years before, she came to the conclusion she could pen a better piece of writing than a lot of the claptrap ringing up registers and resounding with critics. So, in 1969, she began to write, quietly choreographing her work around her duties as a wife and mother and other responsibilities. According to some reports, her husband discovered what she was up to early in the project, but agreed to keep a lid on it. Whatever she was creating, perhaps, she wanted to be worth the read for others.

It was the story about a maverick man of the West, who kidnaps an erudite woman fleeing a hellish marriage in the East, while on his way to pull off a train robbery. She learns the guy is still haunted by the murder of his wife, a Shoshone, and the direction his life has taken since. On an emotional level, West eventually makes a truce and finds love with the East, with the couple on the lam, chased by an angry husband and a railroad detective.

The fledgling author finished her book. And the wise editors at Harcourt Brace snatched it up. They knew a good piece of storytelling when they read it.

The success of that book almost immediately meant a movie would be in the works – one of the few which Burt Reynolds would star in without barking into a CB microphone at fat cops, trading quips with sidekicks Jerry Reed and Dom DeLuise, or pulling off nifty car stunts. It was Reynolds’ first romantic flick.

In the end, the movie was received with all the critical gusto you might expect for a Sumo pole-vaulter. But insofar as literature, the book was acclaimed quite well – not your typical Old West story.

If I recall correct, she didn’t let the commercial success of the book alter much. She and her family remained on Tremont and life grinded on. At some point she did have a stilted writing enclave erected in her back yard, a real getaway place to continue her writing.

She later went on to write a few more books. Both receiving critical hosannas,  but not at the level of her first work.

I admire her tenacity and creativity. And I am proud she put our town and quiet neighborhood on the map. She truly is a treasure.

She wrote a story about The Man Who Loved Cat Dancing. Thank you, Marilyn Durham.