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Marcia Davenport (1903–1996)

Författare till Mozart

19+ verk 951 medlemmar 7 recensioner 2 favoritmärkta

Om författaren

Foto taget av: Courtesy of the NYPL Digital Gallery (image use requires permission from the New York Public Library)

Verk av Marcia Davenport

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Allmänna fakta

Andra namn
Gluck, Abigail Marcia (birth name)
Födelsedag
1903-06-09
Avled
1996-01-16
Kön
female
Nationalitet
USA
Födelseort
New York, New York, USA
Dödsort
Monterey, California, USA
Bostadsorter
New York, New York, USA
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA
Monterey, California, USA
Utbildning
Joseph Fourier University (University of Grenoble)
Wellesley College
Yrken
copywriter
music critic
biographer
novelist
autobiographer
Relationer
Masaryk, Jan (friend)
Gluck, Alma (mother)
Davenport, Russell W. (husband | divorced)
Organisationer
The New Yorker
Stage
Kort biografi
Marcia Davenport was born Abigail Marcia Gluck, the daughter of opera singer Alma Gluck and her first husband, Bernard Gluck (some sources give his surname as Glick). In her autobiography, she wrote that her parents, whose marriage ended in divorce, "were part of the tidal wave of emigration from the Russian Pale and Eastern Europe." Marcia traveled extensively with her mother and stepfather, violinist Efrem Zimbalist, and attended private schools in Pennsylvania. She dropped out of Wellesley College in order to marry her first husband, with whom she had a daughter. Later she earned a degree from the University of Grenoble. In 1928, she began her writing career with a job as a staff writer for The New Yorker, where she worked for three years. In 1929, she married Russell Wheeler Davenport, a novelist who became the editor of Fortune Magazine, and had another daughter. That same year, she became the music critic for Stage magazine. Her first book, Mozart (1932), was the first published American biography of the composer and is still in print. She wrote several popular novels, including the bestseller The Valley of Decision (1942). It was adapted into a Hollywood film, along with her novel East Side, West Side (1947). In the 1930s, Ms. Davenport was a regular commentator on radio broadcasts from the Metropolitan Opera House; in the 1940s, she often participated in radio panel discussion shows. Her autobiography, Too Strong for Fantasy, which described the people, music, places and political forces that shaped her life, including Jan Masaryk, was pubished in 1967.

Medlemmar

Recensioner

Fictional treatment of the Collyer brothers, epic NYC hoarders. The trash-packed brownstone is a metaphor for the unconscious, where the brothers, the id and the superego of a single character, bury everything important in their complicated emotional lives. This concept emerges after a leisurely opening full of period charm but little preparation for the central fact of the story, other than establishing the emotional damage done to the brothers by their wicked witch of a grandmother, owner of the house. Then a shared (of course) romance with an opera singer ensues, giving Davenport scope to dilate on a subject (opera) clearly more congenial to her than OCD. Davenport's mother was an opera singer and Davenport was a regular commentator on the Met radio broadcasts. There is a lengthy idyllic interlude on the shores of Lake Como. Only the last sixty pages of the book will be of real interest to hoarding enthusiasts, although the Freudian interpretation underlying the story is apparent from the beginning. This book, well-written at the sentence level, would have benefitted greatly from more aggressive editing. My copy (457 pages) could have been reduced by a hundred pages to good effect..… (mer)
 
Flaggad
booksaplenty1949 | 2 andra recensioner | Sep 17, 2016 |
Pittsburgh, steel mills/iron works, unions, wealthy families, servants, 1800's....a great story about Pittsburgh.

The book has something for history buffs and also those readers who are interested in the lives of the people during that time period which stretches from the 1800's to December 1941...the day Pearl Harbor was bombed.

The book talks about the steel mills...specifically the Scott Iron Works...and how they grew and how the lives of its owners and workers were totally immersed and devoted. It also discusses unions and how difficult it was to get them started, and how the classes were more apt to snub each other which gave an indication of how life was in the 1800's.

I was not really expecting the book to be what it was, so don't get discouraged from the title and the subject matter. You will enjoy it. It doesn't get too technical...it is more about the Scott family and their lives through the generations. My rating is a 5/5

The Scott family and their history will keep your interest. The love and loyalty between Mary Rafferty and the Scott family was the main theme carried through up to the last pages of the book.

Mary, the main character, was about the same age as William Scott's daughters when she arrived for service at the Scott residence. Mary was a strong girl who held her poor, working class family together even though she only saw them once a week since she had to remain as a live-in servant at the Scott residence. She along with her brother, who worked at the Scott Iron Works, were the breadwinners since their father had been paralyzed by a mill accident a few years before. As Mary's brother James continued to work long hours each day in the mill he also was desperately trying to get a union started in hopes of better working conditions.

Mary's brother and Paul Scott, the son of William Scott, worked together on an invention to help steel production even though Paul was the owner and James was a steelworker. Meanwhile Paul begins to fall in love with Mary and she with him. This is not an acceptable match of course, and Mary tries to discourage it; but they both know that is difficult.

One of Mary’s MANY duties was her responsibility for Constance, the daughter of William and Clarissa Scott. This was a very trying situation because Constance was a handful. Mary's "side job" was to TRY to keep her in line.

Constance then does something unthinkable, and the family, especially her father, would like to disown her. She moves away, and Clarissa Scott insists that she take Mary with her as her personal servant. Mary and Paul are heartbroken. Mary remains with Constance for four years and then is summoned home....both she and Paul are thrilled.

As the months pass, a strike occurs at the mill, and it wasn't a pleasant affair. Paul and Mary continue to struggle with their relationship. Many good and bad things continue to happen to the Scott family both personal and business.

Life went on for the Scott family, and when the parents were gone, the children were left to live their lives as a distant family.....they didn't get along too well. Constance returned from London for a visit, Elizabeth and her husband were still uppity, and William Scott, Jr. and his wife also felt they were too good for the rest of the family. Jealousy and greed were a large part of this family's structure.

During all of this, the mill was flourishing, and Paul and Edgar were responsible for its success, but accidents and deaths in the mill were occurring and Edgar had other plans.

Relationships were starting to get edgy...especially Paul and Louise's marriage.

Mary held all the characters together and was the "glue" and stronghold that got the family through everything that happened in the lives of the Scott family....all the happiness, heartache, tragedies, decisions, births, and deaths. Every Scott loved Mary as if she had been a family member...she was the matriarch.

The story was wonderful....I admired Mary for her strength and loved how Marci Davenport allowed this female character to hold such a strong position throughout the book. It makes you want to be a part of that family and have the care and love that Mary brought to all of them. And....pairing up Mary and Claire made a power-house ending.
… (mer)
2 rösta
Flaggad
SilversReviews | 2 andra recensioner | Jun 21, 2010 |
In deze trilogie Het dal der beslissing het boeiende en dikwijls aangrijpende levensverhaal van het meisje Mary Rafferty, dat op vijftienjarige leeftijd als kamermeisje in dienst treedt in het gezin van de staalmagnaat William Scott en op de duur in deze familie een zeer belangrijke plaats
gaat innemen. Tevens brengt dit boek het levensverhaal van Williams erfgenaam Paul Scott, van Pauls zuster Constance,die met een engelse lord trouwt, en van Con-stance's dochter
Claire. Marcia Davenport voert haar lezers mee naar Philadelphia,
New York, Londen, de franse Riviera en zelfs naar Berlijn en Tsjechoslwakije
… (mer)
½
 
Flaggad
amarynt | 2 andra recensioner | Jul 20, 2009 |
My absolute favorite book.
 
Flaggad
Giugno | 2 andra recensioner | Feb 9, 2009 |

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Statistik

Verk
19
Även av
4
Medlemmar
951
Popularitet
#27,067
Betyg
3.9
Recensioner
7
ISBN
50
Språk
3
Favoritmärkt
2

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