Robert Schlick. Pamela married Robert in Harlem in a ceremony at Alexander Gumby’s salon almost exactly as described. A book dealer in California, who owns a copy of Schlick’s exceedingly rare volume of poetry (The Supplement Poems, 1930), found two holograph accounts of the wedding tucked inside his edition, and he kindly shared copies with me. Soon after the birth of Lorenzo, Robert did run off to Oregon with Roy de Coverley, a minor actor-poet-journalist of the Harlem Renaissance. To the best of my knowledge, he was never heard from again.
Alexander Gumby was a well-known figure of the Harlem Renaissance. He had a book salon and regularly hosted parties for the literati. Perhaps his biggest contribution to American culture are his 161 scrapbooks chronicling the history of African Americans from the early nineteenth to the mid-twentieth century. An online exhibition was launched in September 2011 at the Columbia University Libraries’ website.
Georg Hartmann. Pamela married Georg when she was forty-eight. Besides that, and the fact that he did etchings, I could find no other information on him.
Artwork. I invented the “apple tree at dawn” picture, the goat Pamela draws with Picasso, and the drawing purchased by d’Annunzio. All other paintings, drawings, and lithographs referenced are Pamela’s actual work. She did paint the unsuccessful mauve fruit and flower paintings, although her white-washing of them is an invention. Her triumphant return to the art world in 1961 is fact.
Invented characters. The following characters are entirely fictional: Signora Campanaro; Sara, the green-eyed sculptress; and Dr. Henry Boardman at Four Winds. (Pamela does mention a “Henry” who helped her with her letter writing, but I do not know to whom she was referring.)
Invented places. The Mason and Dyer Gallery, where Pamela meets Georg for the first time, is fictional.
Letters. All letters between Diccon and Pamela are based on letters in the Richard Hughes collection in the Lilly Library at the University of Indiana (Bloomington). A letter found in the Butler Library at Columbia University from Francesco to Mr. Henry L. Bullen written on Christmas Day, 1928, provides the information on Papal Bulls, which Francesco relates to Pamela when he is ill. Robert’s farewell letter to Pamela, which she turns into a paper boat, is fictional, as is the “deathbed” letter from Francesco to Pamela. The 1977 letter from Robert to Pamela is also fictional.
questions for discussion
1. What is the relationship between Pamela and Margery? Do you find it problematical? What about the relationship between Pamela and Francesco?
2. How does Pamela’s illness manifest itself? When does it begin? Do you think it was inevitable (simply inherited), or do you think it had to do with circumstances in her life? What was the cause of her breakdown?
3. Do you agree with Margery’s decision to allow Francesco take charge of their young prodigy daughter? Did she reconcile herself to her decision? What do you think you would have done?
4. What is your opinion about Agnes and Eugene O’Neill? What effect did the O’Neills and their relationship have on Pamela?
5. What role does the classic children’s book The Velveteen Rabbit play in the novel? Do you see any correlations between the themes of that story and the events portrayed in The Velveteen Daughter?
6. What do you think of Francesco? What are his feelings about his daughter? His wife?
7. How do you interpret Pamela’s feelings and actions with regard to Diccon? Is she willfully blind? How did their relationship develop, and how does it change?
8. What does Pamela reveal to Henry, her doctor at Four Winds? What is it that she cannot tell him? Why?
9. Why did Pamela marry Robert? What do you think of Robert? Do you think Pamela was right never to talk of Robert to Lorenzo?
10. What are Pamela’s actions and feelings at the end of the novel? What do they say about her state of mind? Do you think she has changed since we first see her in the opening chapters as a young mother?
11. Many primary materials are quoted in this novel? Does this make the narrative more effective? Is it distracting?
12. How do you feel about the fictionalization of the lives of Pamela and Margery?
acknowledgments
Working with She Writes Press was both exciting and fascinating, and I will be forever grateful for the enthusiasm, the caring, and the professionalism of Brooke Warner, publisher, who somehow managed to run the business and still take time to actively participate in various decisions about this book along the way. I am also indebted to the gifted Julie Metz, who designed the extraordinary cover of this book, and to Lauren Wise, who dealt with an editing kerfuffle or two (or three) with calm and good humor.
I was extremely fortunate to work with Caitlin Hamilton Summie of Caitlin Hamilton Marketing whose thoughtful insights and tireless, stellar initiatives have more than a little to do with whatever success this novel finds.
Writing The Velveteen Daughter required years of research, which resulted in the use of many primary and secondary sources. While the research was riveting for me, I would have been helpless in the follow-up work without the assistance of Barrett Briske, who magically procured permissions for me with impressive efficiency.
Heartfelt thanks go to Nancy Schlick, who was married to Lorenzo (Larry) Schlick, and who took the time to meet with me on more than one occasion to talk about Pamela and Larry; also to David Wirshup, owner of Anacapa Books in Carmel, California, who provided copies of two unattributed hand-written descriptions of Pamela Bianco’s wedding which were invaluable in creating the wedding scene with accuracy, and also a copy of a letter from Robert Schlick to Alexander Gumby, dated January 29, 1933, which relates Gumby’s fate during the Depression.