Confessions of a Liberal Puritan

I see that missmurchison (among others) already broke the sad news of Andre Norton's death on LJ today (we found out about it via the same e-mail list, I suspect).

According to the forwarded letter from her care-giver, she died peacefully in her sleep this morning at 2:23 AM (Central).

If you haven't already seen this, here are Andre Norton's final wishes regarding memorials, as well as her thanks for her fans' expressions of concern and affection during her last year of illness:


Andre requested that, in lieu of flowers, please send donations to Saint Jude Children's Hospital in Memphis Tennessee or Veteranarian Services, c/o The Noah Fund, P.O. Box 10128, Murfreesboro Tn. 37129, in her memory. Because of her love of animals, Andre herself contributed to the Noah Fund which is for people who cannot afford medical treatment for their pets. . . .

Thanks to all of you for your phone calls, cards, flowers and gifts. Knowing everyone cared so much meant a great deal to her. Her modesty made it difficult for her to fully comprehend the magnitude of the feelings her fans and followers had for her. However, near the end she finally realized how much she was loved and admired by so many.


Like many of her fans, I suspect, I feel like I've lost another grandmother or great-grandmother -- someone whom I may never have met in person, but whose voice was an important part of surviving my adolescence and young adulthood.

I'm trying to remember the first Andre Norton book I ever read. I think it was Ice Crown (1970). I know I stumbled upon it in the Junior High library in Wellsboro, PA, and promptly devoured all three of her novels in that library (including Forerunner Foray 1973 and Dread Companion 1970 -- suddenly it's all coming back to me, like it was just yesterday, instead of the mid 1970s!), before ransacking the Greenfree Public Library for any others I could find.

That was back in the days when I had a prejudice against reading any fiction written by or about males, because somehow I thought they had nothing to say to me. Yet, it never once occurred to me that "Andre" might be male. She seemed to be speaking directly to me, and I was sure no male author could do that. [I wonder how many boys had a similar reaction, by the by, assuming that Andre Norton was male, because how else could she speak so well to them?]

After we moved to rural Wisconsin, where I couldn't just ride my bike down to the public library to feed my reading habit, I read through every Norton book in the Mukwonago Junior High library in short order, and then my father introduced me to a man in the nearby village who lived in a mid-19th-century stone farmhouse and had several rooms devoted solely to shelving his massive science fiction book collection. Looking back, I think he must have been my first real contact with fhannish culture.

I was in awe of this man's collection, as well as humbled by his willingness to lend his books out even to a grubby 8th-grader (though since I looked closer to 18 years old, perhaps my father hadn't mentioned my real age to the prospective book lender), and I was more than a little intimidated when I asked for any and all Andre Nortons he might have, only to be told that I should broaden my interests. He ended up giving me Year of the Unicorn and one or two others, but insisted that I also take his hardcover copy of Frank Herbert's Dune, as well. At the time, I thought he disapproved of my fondness for Norton (who used to get some very disparaging mentions in readers' guides to science fiction in the 70s and 80s) and was trying to 'wean' me off her. But, thinking back, perhaps he -- like any other science fiction fan -- was just trying to 'evangelize' for his favorite authors.

As it was, he succeeded in getting me to read Dune, which I actually enjoyed, though I didn't love it as I did my Nortons, so I learned about yet another male science fiction author whom I could tolerate, and perhaps became more adventurous in my library choices after that.

But even more importantly, my experience with that science fiction fan man was the major impetus in turning me into a book-buying addict. I took his paperback copy of Year of the Unicorn along to read on a family camping trip, where it accidentally got left too near the cooking fire and had its cover singed half off. So, before I could return that first batch of books, I had to order and pay for a replacement copy, and I felt so embarassed at having taken so long to return his books (fortunately, the Norton I singed was a modern edition, not a valuable first edition paperback or collector's item from the 1950's, or anything) that I never wanted to face the man again. Plus, I had learned that with my lawn-mowing and baby-sitting money I could actually buy my own paperbacks at B Dalton and Waldenbooks, and start building my own library full of books.

(Picture me, like Scarlett O'Hara in the vegetable garden at Tara, holding my first purchased Andre Norton paperback aloft and vowing, "As God is my witness, I'll never have nothing to read again!")

I need to leave the office at a reasonable hour tonight, so I can dig out one of my Andre Norton's before bedtime. It's been too long since I visited with "Grandma."