Léna and Charlotte, Photo by Amy Drucker
Writing this book has been quite a journey. We were reluctant at first to try to tackle our grandmother’s biography. After all, she herself spoke and wrote about her life a good deal, and we were aware of the fact that the lines between fiction, nonfiction, and memoir can be blurry, for our grandmother no less than for everyone else. How could we write about her in a way that would bring her to life in all her contradictory richness? That would do her justice and honor? That would be honest and fair?
There is something very special about the best grandparent-grandchild relationships. There can be friendship and love without the burdens of daily care and expectations that are so often present between parents and children. She delighted in us and loved us in such a way that we felt truly Named. This book was written out of love in return.
Part of loving someone is being able to see them clearly, and accepting them in all their imperfect fullness. Madeleine often said that she, like Meg Murry, could be both myopic and naïve about people. She never understood why some of her family bristled at Ilsa, or how the line walked between fact and fiction in Meet the Austins was hurtful to her children.
We decided to end the narrative with the publication of A Wrinkle in Time for several reasons. It marked a new stage in her life and career; we thought younger readers would be most interested in her younger days, as we were when we were in school; and we wanted to respect the privacy of her journals and travel gently through them, especially those from the time when we knew her.
We did make one adjustment for the sake of narrative clarity: while we refer to Madeleine’s mother as “Mado,” that was because two Madeleines made the story confusing, and so we gave her the French nickname that her own grandmother was known by.
We hope that this book is recognized as an act of love on our part, and we want to thank the people who made it possible for us to see that this was something we could do: Léna’s immediate family (husband Rob and children Cooper, Finn, and Scarlett); Charlotte’s immediate family (husband John and children Kosta and Magda); our mother, Josephine; and brother, Edward. Additionally, Charlotte wishes to thank Barbara Braver and Catherine Hand for their support and encouragement. Léna is grateful for her Writopia family—both her colleagues and her students, who challenge her to be creative and vulnerable.
Many thanks to our agent, Lisa Erbach Vance; our editor, Margaret Ferguson; and the rest of the team at FSG, including Melissa Warten, Roberta Pressel, Janet Renard, Jennifer Sale, Mary Van Akin, Amanda Mustafic, Caitlin Sweeny, Melissa Zar, and Grace Kendall.