After pioneering the blog (and burning all bridges to conventionality) in 1902 with her first book "I Await the Devil's Coming," Mary MacLane began writing for regular newspaper readers, introducing them to her unique mix of classical allusion, slang humor, and proto-Surrealism decades before the European cutting-edge picked it up independently. She was capable of rendering anything in a shocking new light, and never more so than in her reminiscences of Manhattan during the years after the enormous success of her first book. Written in 1910, after her return to Butte, Montana (and after a near-fatal illness), post-Gilded-Age Manhattan becomes in her eye a spectral region of delight and disaster, populated by young women eager for pleasure at all costs. Though she reigned at the center of them, MacLane's observing eye is never turned off, and her pen never sharper than in the New York articles she wrote as she came back to health. Text (3080 words) is from the Petrarca Press anthology "Human Days: A Mary MacLane Reader," edited by Michael R. Brown.
About the author: “I sing only the Ego and the individual. So does in secret each man and woman and child who breathes, but is afraid to sing it aloud.” - Mary MacLane (1881-1929) was the first of the modern media personalities: a pioneer in self-revelation, in defiance of established rules, in living on her own terms - and writing about it. At age 19 she burst upon the world out of Butte, Montana with a journal of her private thoughts and longings that brought national then international attention. Through the books and newspaper articles that followed she created a completely new, individual voice decades ahead of its time. She influenced Gertrude Stein, inspired F. Scott Fitzgerald, and was hailed by America’s greatest writers and everyday people on the street. And though she inspires film, stage, and music projects to this day - though she is quoted on and off the Internet - the writer behind the writing has remained unknown until now. - “Mary MacLane, 1902’s Racy, Angsty Teenage Diarist, wrote long before provocative, confessional writing was a genre of its own. Her diaries ignited a national uproar, ushering in a new era for women’s voices. Her elegant, ambitious embrace of full-disclosure had opened a door to what was possible for women.” - The Atlantic, March 2013 - “She comes off the page quivering with life. Moving.” - London Times (1981 retrospect) - “Mary MacLane’s first book was the first of the confessional diaries ever written in this country, and it was a sensation.” - N.Y. Times (editorial) - “She had a short but fiery life of writing and misadventure, and her writing was a template for the confessional memoirs that have become ubiquitous.” - The New Yorker, March 2013 - “One of the most fascinatingly self-involved personalities of the 20th century.” - The Age (Nov. 2011 feature article) - “Miss MacLane stands as the greatest sensationalist of a sensational day … She dares to tell to all the world what most people try to keep profoundly guarded … She stands for truth and dares the courage of her convictions.” - From hundreds of letters-to-the-editor on her first book - “In a pre-soundbite age she already knew how to draw blood in one direct sentence. Mary MacLane - who openly resisted the idea that she was like everyone else, of her time or any other - lived the dream, as we say nowadays, and the sun of the wide, bright world has come to shine on her again.” - The Awl, March 2013
About the author: “I sing only the Ego and the individual. So does in secret each man and woman and child who breathes, but is afraid to sing it aloud.” - Mary MacLane (1881-1929) was the first of the modern media personalities: a pioneer in self-revelation, in defiance of established rules, in living on her own terms - and writing about it. At age 19 she burst upon the world out of Butte, Montana with a journal of her private thoughts and longings that brought national then international attention. Through the books and newspaper articles that followed she created a completely new, individual voice decades ahead of its time. She influenced Gertrude Stein, inspired F. Scott Fitzgerald, and was hailed by America’s greatest writers and everyday people on the street. And though she inspires film, stage, and music projects to this day - though she is quoted on and off the Internet - the writer behind the writing has remained unknown until now. - “Mary MacLane, 1902’s Racy, Angsty Teenage Diarist, wrote long before provocative, confessional writing was a genre of its own. Her diaries ignited a national uproar, ushering in a new era for women’s voices. Her elegant, ambitious embrace of full-disclosure had opened a door to what was possible for women.” - The Atlantic, March 2013 - “She comes off the page quivering with life. Moving.” - London Times (1981 retrospect) - “Mary MacLane’s first book was the first of the confessional diaries ever written in this country, and it was a sensation.” - N.Y. Times (editorial) - “She had a short but fiery life of writing and misadventure, and her writing was a template for the confessional memoirs that have become ubiquitous.” - The New Yorker, March 2013 - “One of the most fascinatingly self-involved personalities of the 20th century.” - The Age (Nov. 2011 feature article) - “Miss MacLane stands as the greatest sensationalist of a sensational day … She dares to tell to all the world what most people try to keep profoundly guarded … She stands for truth and dares the courage of her convictions.” - From hundreds of letters-to-the-editor on her first book - “In a pre-soundbite age she already knew how to draw blood in one direct sentence. Mary MacLane - who openly resisted the idea that she was like everyone else, of her time or any other - lived the dream, as we say nowadays, and the sun of the wide, bright world has come to shine on her again.” - The Awl, March 2013
