Author Q&A
1. Tell us about Margaret Mead; why did she make history?
It’s always funny to be asked to explain Margaret Mead and what she did, because for years — in fact for most of the Twentieth Century— she was one of the most well known women in this country, a true American icon. So legendary, in fact, that in 1999, when the US Postal service made a series of stamps to commemorate each decade, her image, along with those of Babe Ruth and Charles Lindbergh, was chosen to represent the 1920s. Even today, when her name is not familiar, her quotes remain profoundly relevant: “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it's the only thing that ever has.” And in the Library of Congress, the Margaret Mead Papers is the largest collection assembled around any one single individual.
So how did she get there? Born in 1901, at the end of the Victorian era, she was raised in a world in which women had few opportunities. She, like other young ladies, was expected to marry early and was not encouraged to pursue any kind of work outside the home. Margaret upended all of that. To sum her up I’d say that Margaret Mead was a firecracker. She challenged the social and sexual constraints that kept women in their place, giving them permission to express themselves in ways that had never before existed. It’s fair to say that without her, the revolutions of the 1960s — including women’s liberation and free sex — would never have happened. She did all of this by being, of all things, an anthropologist. It's remarkable really, when you think about the changes she was able to bring about.
2. Tell us a little about Mead as a passionate young woman discovering her own sexuality. How you think it affected what she chose to study?
The story picks up at the point in Margaret’s life when she was living in New York City, on the verge of wedding her childhood sweetheart, and about to start graduate school in anthropology at Columbia University. She soon found out that while married life provided security, it was lacking in passion. When she was unexpectedly caught up in an affair with a brilliant older man, and then in a forbidden relationship with a female colleague, she began to question the concept of monogamy.
She also started to test limits in her professional life.
As a graduate student in anthropology she was expected to do fieldwork with a Native American tribe somewhere in the continental United States. Over the objections of friends, family and colleagues, she insisted on going to Polynesia. In August of 1925, she traveled 9000 miles, first by train and then by ocean liner, to a tiny speck of land in the South Pacific called Samoa. Once there she set to work to investigate the way adolescent girls in a “primitive culture” differed from their counterparts back in America. The subject coincides with issues she had been wrestling with in her own life, namely — why can’t men and women experiment with sex before marriage?
Then a chance encounter on the ocean liner bringing her home added to the tumult in her personal life. Yet that encounter, with all of the confusing and ecstatic emotions it unleashed, built on her own sexual awakening, and positioned her to write Coming of Age in Samoa, a compelling account about young love. Although ostensibly about intimate relationships in the South Seas, it was replete with meaning for the Western world, too. The book catapulted her into world fame.
3. Why did you choose Margaret Mead as a topic?
My interest in Margaret Mead began with my own chance encounter in the 1970s. At the time, Mead was in her early seventies and world famous, I was a recent college grad, working as a receptionist at a small publishing company in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Late one afternoon, while I was sitting at the switchboard and counting the minutes until closing time, I heard a noise in the foyer. Looking down the hall I saw an old woman struggling to get out of a heavy overcoat. Her hair was mousy gray, her shape squat and dumpy. Surprisingly, her mere presence was causing a commotion among the men. I asked a co-worker to tell me who she was. With great reverence she whispered, “That’s Margaret Mead.”
I’d never seen men behave that way around a woman who wasn’t beautiful. What gave this old woman so much power? Without my realizing it, a seed had been planted. I began to read about her, starting with her memoir. The ideas she floated had to do with finding one’s own unique path in the world and having the confidence to assert oneself. This resonated - it was the way I wanted to live my own life.
4. You indicate that Margaret Mead kept the personal details of her life secret, during her lifetime and beyond. What was she hiding and how did you uncover her secrets?
As a young woman, Margaret came to believe that she was incapable of maintaining “a single hearted devotion.” She questioned why love and intimacy need be limited to one person at a time, or, for that matter, limited to the opposite sex. Once she gave herself permission to enter a same-sex relationship, she was extremely careful to keep it a secret. For the time in which she lived, her behavior was downright taboo. She knew, if the details of her affair ever came to light, her reputation would be ruined. She was so successful at hiding that her secrets were not laid bare until 2009, many years after her death, when her letters were released into the public domain. I was able to make digital copies of hundreds of these letters and study them. They provided a window into her mind during her formative years.
5. Thinking of all the bookclub readers who are reading this interview, if you could put together your ideal bookclub for your book – made up of other authors – who would you pick and what would you want to discuss?
My main mentor as a writer – my father, Edwin Blum — (he co-wrote Stalag 17 with Billy Wilder) used to say that all writing is just thinking. It took me a long time to understand this. And now, believing this to be the case, I would be thrilled to be in a room with some of my favorite writers who I consider great thinkers.
For me, when I take on a book project, the story is everything. That being the case I’d love to discuss the process of finding the story in a real-life situation and using letters and memoirs to get inside the heads of the actual participants, the way that two masters of narrative non-fiction do, namely Erik Larson (In the Garden of Beasts) and David Grann (Killers of the Flower Moon).
It would also be fascinating to have some historians of women’s history there, like Doris Kearns Goodwin and Gloria Steinem, who would help us focus on the role Margaret Mead played in changing the consciousness of American women, and men.
And finally, because I make an effort to construct my non-fiction books so they read like novels, I’d like to hear from authors Lily King (who fictionalized a later episode in Margaret Mead’s life in Euphoria), and Paula McClain (who fictionalized Hemmingway’s first marriage in Paris Wife) to explain how they straddled the line between the novel and non-fiction.
Short of these writers joining me, I have to say that I would be equally thrilled to drop into a random book club, somewhere in another part of country, with people I’ve never met. We could tackle the same questions and have just as good a time.
About the Author
DEBORAH BEATRIZ BLUM'S interest in other cultures and far-away lands began when she traveled the world as a writer on the television series In Search Of.... Her first book, Bad Karma: A True Story of Obsession and Murder, took her on an extended journey through India. Since then she has sold story ideas for feature films, producing several, including Clean and Sober, and has worked as a writer-director of documentaries for the National Geographic Channel, the Discovery Channel, and the History Channel. She makes her home in Los Angeles with her husband and three sons.
