Jean Nathan. (2013). The Secret Life of the Lonely Doll: The Search for Dare Wright. Henry Holt and Co.

Jean Nathan. 2013. The Secret Life of the Lonely Doll: The Search for Dare Wright. Henry Holt and Co.

Jean Nathan, The Secret Life of the Lonely Doll: The Search for Dare Wright. Henry Holt and Co, 2013.

Jean Nathan. The Secret Life of the Lonely Doll: The Search for Dare Wright. Henry Holt and Co, 2013.

OverDrive Product Record

images

• cover:
  • href: https://img1.od-cdn.com/ImageType-100/2390-1/{542A85E8-A3EB-417C-8008-D12021127A34}Img100.jpg
  • type: image/jpeg
• thumbnail:
  • href: https://img1.od-cdn.com/ImageType-200/2390-1/{542A85E8-A3EB-417C-8008-D12021127A34}Img200.jpg
  • type: image/jpeg
• cover150Wide:
  • href: https://img1.od-cdn.com/ImageType-150/2390-1/542/A85/E8/{542A85E8-A3EB-417C-8008-D12021127A34}Img150.jpg
  • type: image/jpeg
• cover300Wide:
  • href: https://img1.od-cdn.com/ImageType-400/2390-1/542/A85/E8/{542A85E8-A3EB-417C-8008-D12021127A34}Img400.jpg
  • type: image/jpeg

formats

1. • identifiers:
     1. • type: ISBN
        • value: 9781466845305
   • name: Adobe EPUB eBook
   • id: ebook-epub-adobe
2. • identifiers:
     1. • type: ASIN
        • value: B00CNTTV0G
   • name: Kindle Book
   • id: ebook-kindle
3. • identifiers:
     1. • type: ISBN
        • value: 9781466845305
   • name: OverDrive Read
   • id: ebook-overdrive

otherFormatIdentifiers

1. • type: ISBN
   • value: 9780312424923

mediaType

eBook

primaryCreator

• role: Author
• name: Jean Nathan

isOwnedByCollections

False

title

The Secret Life of the Lonely Doll

dateAdded

2017-01-13T03:04:51.437Z

contentDetails

1. • href: https://link.overdrive.com?websiteID=141&titleID=1306021
   • type: text/html
   • account:
     • name: Sacramento Public Library (CA)
     • id: 1151

sortTitle

Secret Life of the Lonely Doll The Search for Dare Wright

crossRefId

1306021

subtitle

The Search for Dare Wright

id

542A85E8-A3EB-417C-8008-D12021127A34

starRating

4

OverDrive MetaData

isPublicDomain

False

formats

1. • fileName: TheSecretLifeoftheLo_9781466845305_1306021
   • partCount: 0
   • fileSize: 7942345
   • identifiers:
     1. • type: ISBN
        • value: 9781466845305
   • rights:
     1. • type: Copying
        • value: 0
     2. • type: Printing
        • value: 0
     3. • type: Lending
        • value: 0
     4. • type: ReadAloud
        • value: 0
     5. • type: ExpirationRights
        • value: 0
   • name: Adobe EPUB eBook
   • isReadAlong: False
   • id: ebook-epub-adobe
   • onSaleDate: 5/17/2013
   • samples:
     1. • source: From the book
        • formatType: ebook-overdrive
        • url: https://samples.overdrive.com/secret-life-of-542a85?.epub-sample.overdrive.com
2. • fileName: TheSecretLifeoftheLo_1306021
   • partCount: 0
   • fileSize: 0
   • identifiers:
     1. • type: ASIN
        • value: B00CNTTV0G
   • name: Kindle Book
   • isReadAlong: False
   • id: ebook-kindle
   • onSaleDate: 5/17/2013
   • samples:
     1. • source: From the book
        • formatType: ebook-overdrive
        • url: https://samples.overdrive.com/secret-life-of-542a85?.epub-sample.overdrive.com
3. • fileName: TheSecretLifeoftheLo_9781466845305_1306021
   • partCount: 0
   • fileSize: 0
   • identifiers:
     1. • type: ISBN
        • value: 9781466845305
   • name: OverDrive Read
   • isReadAlong: False
   • id: ebook-overdrive
   • onSaleDate: 5/17/2013
   • samples:
     1. • source: From the book
        • formatType: ebook-overdrive
        • url: https://samples.overdrive.com/secret-life-of-542a85?.epub-sample.overdrive.com

keywords

1. • value: Literary Biography
2. • value: Dysfunctional Families
3. • value: literary history
4. • value: novelist
5. • value: 1940s
6. • value: ohio
7. • value: 1950s
8. • value: photography
9. • value: cleveland
10. • value: Autobiography
11. • value: United States
12. • value: Dolls
13. • value: Nathan
14. • value: poet
15. • value: memoir
16. • value: Queens
17. • value: woman
18. • value: Dare Wright
19. • value: Women Writers
20. • value: book club recommendations
21. • value: TPC
22. • value: childrens literature
23. • value: lonely childhoods
24. • value: canadian authors
25. • value: lone figure
26. • value: paper doll
27. • value: Anthony Wright
28. • value: writers lives
29. • value: book group discussion questions
30. • value: reading group guides
31. • value: childrens author biography
32. • value: eccentric authors
33. • value: popular kids author
34. • value: doll family
35. • value: childhood dare
36. • value: colorado hunting
37. • value: 1970s tv movies
38. • value: 1970s tv series
39. • value: 1970s tv shows
40. • value: biography about marilyn monroe
41. • value: the lonely doll
42. • value: privileged childhoods
43. • value: lifes secrets
44. • value: literary figures autobiography
45. • value: lonely life
46. • value: ghost artist
47. • value: ghost photos

creators

1. • role: Author
   • fileAs: Nathan, Jean
   • bioText:

     Jean Nathan graduated from Williams College and the Columbia School of Journalism. She was a staff writer for The New York Observer and a senior editor at Connoisseur magazine. She has written for The New York Times, The New Yorker, Travel & Leisure, Vogue, and other publications. She lives in New York City.

   • name: Jean Nathan

publishDate

2013-05-17T00:00:00-04:00

isOwnedByCollections

True

title

The Secret Life of the Lonely Doll

fullDescription

A glamorous, haunted life unfolds in the mesmerizing biography of the woman behind a classic children's book
In 1957, a children's book called The Lonely Doll was published. With its pink-and-white-checked cover and photographs featuring a wide-eyed doll, it captured the imaginations of young girls and made the author, Dare Wright, a household name.
Close to forty years after its publication, the book was out of print but not forgotten. When the cover image inexplicably came to journalist Jean Nathan one afternoon, she went in search of the book-and ultimately its author. Nathan found Dare Wright living out her last days in a decrepit public hospital in Queens, New York.
Over the next five years, Nathan pieced together a glamorous life. Blond, beautiful Wright had begun her career as an actress and model and then turned to fashion photography before stumbling upon her role as bestselling author. But there was a dark side to the story: a brother lost in childhood, ill-fated marriage plans, a complicated, controlling mother. Edith Stevenson Wright, herself a successful portrait painter, played such a dominant role in her daughter's life that Dare was never able to find her way into the adult world. Only through her work could she speak for herself: in her books she created the happy family she'd always yearned for, while her self-portraits betrayed an unresolved tension between sexuality and innocence, a desire to belong and painful isolation.
Illustrated with stunning photographs, The Secret Life of the Lonely Doll tells the unforgettable story of a woman who, imprisoned by her childhood, sought to set herself free through art.

reviews

1. • premium: False
   • source: Mark Singer, Author of Somewhere in America and staff writer, The New Yorker
   • content:

     "Most artists lead idiosyncratic existences, but few are stranger than that of Dare Wright, a beautiful and poignantly lost soul. With painstaking resolve, Jean Nathan has captured this elusive creature and, with compassion and empathy, brought her back to life. Her biography of Wright is a haunting tale, skillfully told."

2. • premium: False
   • source: Leonard S. Marcus, author of Margaret Wise Brown: Awakened by the Moon
   • content: "Jean Nathan has given us a haunting portrait of a haunted and heartbreaking creative life. Here is proof, if ever any was needed, that the children's books that last are those born not of lovely thoughts but of childhood's innermost necessities."
3. • premium: False
   • source: Meg Wolitzer, author of The Wife
   • content: "Reads like a novel, and a Gothic one at that, full of outsized characters, an evocatively drawn backdrop, and with a strange and compelling mystery at its heart."
4. • premium: False
   • source: Stacy Schiff, author of Vera
   • content: "A beguiling piece of detective work, which itself makes for a kind of fairy tale."
5. • premium: False
   • source: Cindy Sherman
   • content: "Although I never read The Lonely Doll as a child or saw Dare Wright's photographs, it's as if somehow I did. Nathan has done an amazing job to capture Wright's life on the page and to bring us into the household of one of the saddest dysfunctional families ever."
6. • premium: True
   • source:
   • content:

     June 21, 2004
     In 1957, The Lonely Doll
     made model/actress turned author/photographer Dare Wright famous. The children's book told the story of Edith, a lonely doll until two teddy bears—a father and son—come to live with her. This dark and painfully poignant biography, tells the story of the beautiful and creative Dare (1914–2001), who was separated from her own father and brother when she was three. Alone with her strong-willed, manipulative mother, Edie, Dare strove to please her, Nathan writes, "playing handmaiden to Edie's queen as Edie created their own private universe" of dressup and pretend. Their closeness becomes increasingly disturbing, keeping Dare a child even as she matures into womanhood. There's a suggestion by some who knew them of a sexual element in the relationship, but Nathan is careful not to speculate. With Edie's death near the end of the book the story loses some of its clarity, because despite having many friends, Dare doesn't know how to live without her mother; the downward spiral of her final years is horrifying yet incomprehensible. But this is a quibble, and doesn't detract from the fascinating and elusive girl/woman at the center of this story. Photos. Agent, Amanda Urban. (Sept. 2)
     
     FYI:
     The Lonely Doll and two of its sequels have been reissued by Houghton Mifflin.

popularity

58

links

• self:
  • href: https://api.overdrive.com/v1/collections/v1L1BWwAAAA2I/products/542a85e8-a3eb-417c-8008-d12021127a34/metadata
  • type: application/vnd.overdrive.api+json

id

542a85e8-a3eb-417c-8008-d12021127a34

starRating

4

images

• cover:
  • href: https://img1.od-cdn.com/ImageType-100/2390-1/{542A85E8-A3EB-417C-8008-D12021127A34}Img100.jpg
  • type: image/jpeg
• thumbnail:
  • href: https://img1.od-cdn.com/ImageType-200/2390-1/{542A85E8-A3EB-417C-8008-D12021127A34}Img200.jpg
  • type: image/jpeg
• cover150Wide:
  • href: https://img1.od-cdn.com/ImageType-150/2390-1/542/A85/E8/{542A85E8-A3EB-417C-8008-D12021127A34}Img150.jpg
  • type: image/jpeg
• cover300Wide:
  • href: https://img1.od-cdn.com/ImageType-400/2390-1/542/A85/E8/{542A85E8-A3EB-417C-8008-D12021127A34}Img400.jpg
  • type: image/jpeg

isPublicPerformanceAllowed

False

languages

1. • code: en
   • name: English

subjects

1. • value: Biography & Autobiography
2. • value: Children
3. • value: Literary Criticism
4. • value: Nonfiction

publishDateText

05/17/2013

otherFormatIdentifiers

1. • type: ISBN
   • value: 9780312424923

mediaType

eBook

shortDescription

A glamorous, haunted life unfolds in the mesmerizing biography of the woman behind a classic children's book
In 1957, a children's book called The Lonely Doll was published. With its pink-and-white-checked cover and photographs featuring a wide-eyed doll, it captured the imaginations of young girls and made the author, Dare Wright, a household name.
Close to forty years after its publication, the book was out of print but not forgotten. When the cover image inexplicably came to journalist Jean Nathan one afternoon, she went in search of the book-and ultimately its author. Nathan found Dare Wright living out her last days in a decrepit public hospital in Queens, New York.
Over the next five years, Nathan pieced together a glamorous life. Blond, beautiful Wright had begun her career as an actress and model and then turned to fashion photography before stumbling upon her role as bestselling author. But there was a dark side to the story: a brother lost in...

sortTitle

Secret Life of the Lonely Doll The Search for Dare Wright

crossRefId

1306021

subtitle

The Search for Dare Wright

publisher

Henry Holt and Co.

bisacCodes

1. • code: BIO007000
   • description: Biography & Autobiography / Literary
2. • code: BIO022000
   • description: Biography & Autobiography / Women
3. • code: LIT009000
   • description: Literary Criticism / Children's & Young Adult Literature