Ebook471 pages7 hours
Odyssey of a Wandering Mind: The Strange Tale of Sara Mayfield, Author
Rating: 0 out of 5 stars
()
About this ebook
A carefully rendered portrait of a brilliant but troubled daughter of the Old South who struggled against the conventions of gender, class, family, and ultimately of sanity, yet survived to define a creative life of her own
Sara Mayfield was born into Alabama’s governing elite in 1905 and grew up in a social circle that included Zelda Sayre, Sara Haardt, and Tallulah and Eugenia Bankhead. After winning a Goucher College short story contest judged by H. L. Mencken, Mayfield became friends with Mencken and his circle, then visited with Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald and hobnobbed with the literati while traveling in Europe after a failed marriage. Returning to Alabama during the Depression, she briefly managed the family landholdings before departing for New York City where she became involved in the theater. Inventing a plastic compound while working on theatrical sets, she applied for a patent and set her sights on a livelihood as an inventor and businesswoman. With the advent of World War II, Mayfield returned to her family home in Tuscaloosa where she expanded her experiments, freelanced as a journalist, and doggedly pursued a bizarre series of military and intelligence schemes, prompting temporary hospitalization. In 1945, she mingled with a host of cultural figures, including Frida Kahlo, Diego Rivera, Orson Welles, Rita Hayworth, and even a young John F. Kennedy, while reporting on the creation of the United Nations from Mexico and California. Back in Tuscaloosa after the war, however, she struggled to find her way with both work and family, becoming increasingly paranoid about perceived conspiracies arrayed against her. Finally, her mother and brother committed her to Bryce Hospital for the Insane, where she remained for the next seventeen years.
Throughout her life, Mayfield kept journals, wrote fiction, and produced thousands of letters while nursing the ambition that had driven her since childhood: to write and publish books. During her confinement, Mayfield assiduously recorded her experiences and her determined efforts—sometimes delusional, always savvy—to overturn her diagnosis and return to the world as a sane, independent adult. At 59, she was released from Bryce and later obtained a decree of “having been restored to sanity,” enabling her to manage her own financial affairs and to live how and where she pleased. She went on to publish noteworthy literary biographies of the Menckens and the Fitzgeralds plus a novel based on the life of Mona Lisa, finally achieving her quest to become the author of books and her own life. In Odyssey of a Wandering Mind, noted writer Jennifer Horne draws on years of research and an intimate understanding of the vast archive Sara Mayfield left behind to sensitively render Mayfield’s struggle to move through the world as the person she was—and her ultimate success in surviving to define the terms of her story.
Sara Mayfield was born into Alabama’s governing elite in 1905 and grew up in a social circle that included Zelda Sayre, Sara Haardt, and Tallulah and Eugenia Bankhead. After winning a Goucher College short story contest judged by H. L. Mencken, Mayfield became friends with Mencken and his circle, then visited with Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald and hobnobbed with the literati while traveling in Europe after a failed marriage. Returning to Alabama during the Depression, she briefly managed the family landholdings before departing for New York City where she became involved in the theater. Inventing a plastic compound while working on theatrical sets, she applied for a patent and set her sights on a livelihood as an inventor and businesswoman. With the advent of World War II, Mayfield returned to her family home in Tuscaloosa where she expanded her experiments, freelanced as a journalist, and doggedly pursued a bizarre series of military and intelligence schemes, prompting temporary hospitalization. In 1945, she mingled with a host of cultural figures, including Frida Kahlo, Diego Rivera, Orson Welles, Rita Hayworth, and even a young John F. Kennedy, while reporting on the creation of the United Nations from Mexico and California. Back in Tuscaloosa after the war, however, she struggled to find her way with both work and family, becoming increasingly paranoid about perceived conspiracies arrayed against her. Finally, her mother and brother committed her to Bryce Hospital for the Insane, where she remained for the next seventeen years.
Throughout her life, Mayfield kept journals, wrote fiction, and produced thousands of letters while nursing the ambition that had driven her since childhood: to write and publish books. During her confinement, Mayfield assiduously recorded her experiences and her determined efforts—sometimes delusional, always savvy—to overturn her diagnosis and return to the world as a sane, independent adult. At 59, she was released from Bryce and later obtained a decree of “having been restored to sanity,” enabling her to manage her own financial affairs and to live how and where she pleased. She went on to publish noteworthy literary biographies of the Menckens and the Fitzgeralds plus a novel based on the life of Mona Lisa, finally achieving her quest to become the author of books and her own life. In Odyssey of a Wandering Mind, noted writer Jennifer Horne draws on years of research and an intimate understanding of the vast archive Sara Mayfield left behind to sensitively render Mayfield’s struggle to move through the world as the person she was—and her ultimate success in surviving to define the terms of her story.
Related to Odyssey of a Wandering Mind
Related ebooks
Looking at Women Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsA Study Guide for Andrea Lee's "New African" Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsLola Leroy: 'I don't take much stock in white folks' religion'' Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsSara's Sacrifice: Book 1 of the Daughters of Evolution Series Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsMothers of Invention: Women of the Slaveholding South in the American Civil War Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5my yt mama Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Courage, Endurance, Sacrifice: The Lives and Faith of Three Generations of Missionaries Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Book of Gutsy Women: Favorite Stories of Courage and Resilience Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Breath: A Lifetime in the Rhythm of an Iron Lung: A Memoir Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Housewife Assassin: The Woman Who Tried to Kill President Ford Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsSally Ride: Life on a Mission Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Writings to Young Women from Laura Ingalls Wilder - Volume One: On Wisdom and Virtues Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Beyond the Gates: 'There are two kinds of solitary'' Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsWithout Precedent: The Life of Susie Marshall Sharp Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5A Thesaurus of Women from Water to Music Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsRugged Mercy: A Country Doctor in Idaho's Sun Valley Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Femme Fatale: Love, Lies, and the Unknown Life of Mata Hari Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5The History of Soul 2065 Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Heiresses of Russ 2016: The Year's Best Lesbian Speculative Fiction Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsLife Among The Piutes: Their Wrongs And Claims Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Justice Leah Ward Sears: Seizing Serendipity Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsEssential Novelists - Mary Hunter Austin: A Woman of Genius Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsKamala's Way: An American Life Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Soldier Girls: The Battles of Three Women at Home and at War Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Dearest Ones At Home: Clara Taylor’s Letters from Russia, 1917-1919 Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsPrincess of the Hither Isles: A Black Suffragist's Story from the Jim Crow South Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Sarah's Secret: A Western Tale of Betrayal and Forgiveness Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsFinding Eliza: Power and Colonial Storytelling Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Questions That Matter Most: Reading, Writing, and the Exercise of Freedom Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratings
Biography & Memoir For You
The Good Neighbor: The Life and Work of Fred Rogers Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Just Mercy: a story of justice and redemption Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5I'll Be Gone in the Dark: One Woman's Obsessive Search for the Golden State Killer Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Mommie Dearest Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Maybe You Should Talk to Someone: the heartfelt, funny memoir by a New York Times bestselling therapist Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Maybe You Should Talk to Someone: A Therapist, HER Therapist, and Our Lives Revealed Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Becoming Bulletproof: Protect Yourself, Read People, Influence Situations, and Live Fearlessly Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A Stolen Life: A Memoir Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Diary of a Young Girl Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Indifferent Stars Above: The Harrowing Saga of the Donner Party Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Meditations: Complete and Unabridged Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Seven Pillars of Wisdom: A Triumph Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Taste: My Life Through Food Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A Billion Years: My Escape From a Life in the Highest Ranks of Scientology Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Why Fish Don't Exist: A Story of Loss, Love, and the Hidden Order of Life Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5South to America: A Journey Below the Mason-Dixon to Understand the Soul of a Nation Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Working Stiff: Two Years, 262 Bodies, and the Making of a Medical Examiner Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Ivy League Counterfeiter Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Disorganized Mind: Coaching Your ADHD Brain to Take Control of Your Time, Tasks, and Talents Rating: 2 out of 5 stars2/5People, Places, Things: My Human Landmarks Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Alive: The Story of the Andes Survivors Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Jack Reacher Reading Order: The Complete Lee Child’s Reading List Of Jack Reacher Series Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Disloyal: A Memoir: The True Story of the Former Personal Attorney to President Donald J. Trump Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5All That Remains: A Renowned Forensic Scientist on Death, Mortality, and Solving Crimes Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Finding Freedom: Harry and Meghan and the Making of a Modern Royal Family Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5The Simple Faith of Mister Rogers: Spiritual Insights from the World's Most Beloved Neighbor Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Wright Brothers Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5
Reviews for Odyssey of a Wandering Mind
Rating: 0 out of 5 stars
0 ratings
0 ratings0 reviews
Book preview
Odyssey of a Wandering Mind - Jennifer Horne
2e book_preview_excerpt.html }َGx0
"$R I&Ts*B#"n!_2|=t¼ΊyOї=^3Lj@pws[rn{Yo滸,\oo][.yhkmݷ_?t]}3vwzXnyйv7<}:W{qqū}~Q~7|_ur,ϝף\X7=}V^|v/žmXx֧qΚ}!קE-8
.c=߸A65ŲbXqlbWט!
7_+(