Pulp Fiction II: Bad Girls Club

Apparently, sometimes the titles of the books themselves were deemed insufficiently titillating, and had to be changed:

But it's interesting, isn't it, that it's the female character that gets recast as the bad one. So what if that's thoroughly inaccurate and completely unfair? The point is to sell books, right?

Oh, well. At least they spelled Kay's name correctly...

Pulp Fiction; Or, You Can't Judge a Book by Its Cover

Like the work of many a greater and lesser writer, Kay's novels were republished through the 1940s and 50s in cheap (in both commonly understood senses of the word) paperback editions, tarted up with racy new covers that gave a thoroughly inaccurate and misleading (and certainly intentional) impression of the work therein. 



While the clothes and hairstyles have been brought up-to-date for this 1949 reissue of Young Man, you'd never know that this is actually a Jazz Age story about newspaper reporters, Prohibition, and bootleg whisky!

Never Ask a Lady Her Age!

Here's a contemporary account of Kay and the house in Haddam:

VERY interesting (and completely incidental to the story) is that the year of Kay's birth is given as 1900 (though the day was actually August 15); by this time she had already started shaving two years off her age. Even today, most sources indicate 1902 as the year of her birth, a fiction promulgated by no less than the Grey Lady herself, The New York Times. The 1900 date is confirmed, however, by the family's grave marker in Old Saybrook. 

One wonders--did Kay slip up, or did the newspaper have more reliable information?

The Haddam House

On the way to Old Saybrook yesterday, we stopped at Haddam to see the Nehemiah Brainerd House, which was built around 1765, and which Kay owned from 1932 until some time in the early 1940s. Kay moved the house some 400 feet back from the road, creating quite a sweep of front lawn, and had the house enlarged with the addition of two wings.

After years of neglect, the house was purchased by Maryan and Jeff Muthersbaugh in 2002, who have lovingly restored the house, retaining as much period detail as possible--period detail that acknowledges both the the house's Colonial Heritage and its later Deco Era transformations.

 

Maryan and Jeff started operation of The Nehemiah Brainerd House B&B three or four years ago. They are two of the nicest people you'll ever meet, and, despite a houseful of company, they were so sweet to give us a tour of the entire house, and part of the lovely property.

The Connecticut River is hidden
from view during summer months

Perhaps the most charmingly alluring feature of the Inn is the cottage, which has its own kitchen and bath (recent additions by Maryan and Jeff), and a commanding view of the Connecticut River, which was mostly hidden by the lush foliage when we visited. It's not clear if the cottage was there in Kay's time (it doesn't appear on the blueprints of the house and property), but Maryan and I like to think that Kay may have used it as a studio, where she could write in quiet solitude... 

Dennis, Gloria, and Maryan on the cottage patio

The cottage was chosen by Yankee Magazine as Editors' Choice Best of New England, Best Hilltop Cottage for 2011.

RIP, KB

Today was the 60th Anniversary of Katharine Brush's death. A few friends and I drove up to Old Saybrook, Connecticut to visit Kay's grave in Riverside Cemetery.

Kay's ashes are buried next to her parents, and her brother Travis.