Katharine McCormick: Reading T.C. Boyle’s “Riven Rock”

This is Kris, taking on one of the last blog installments about our Katharine McCormick project. When we started our research, we learned that T.C. Boyle had written a novel, Riven Rock (1998), based on Katharine’s marriage to Stanley McCormick. We resisted reading the novel until we finished the quilt because we didn’t want it to influence our take on Katharine’s life. After all, it was about Katharine’s personal tragedy of marrying an endearing man and heir to an immense fortune, only to learn almost immediately thereafter that he suffered from schizophrenia. Just look at their wedding photo above. Aren’t they the perfect couple? I can recommend Riven Rock for many reasons.

 

The Facts

Boyle did his homework for Riven Rock. Relying on the research of Armond Fields, whose biography, Katharine Dexter McCormick: Pioneer for Women’s Rights (2003), we also depended on, Boyle covers the nearly 40 years that Stanley lived secluded at Riven Rock near Santa Barbara, California. He weaves historical events such as World War I, the 1918 influenza pandemic, and the 1925 Santa Barbara earthquake into the narrative, reminding the reader of the intimate effects these events actually have on individual people.

Doctors and caregivers came and went, and Katharine was not allowed to see her husband for over twenty years. Stanley’s schizophrenia was tied to violent outbursts, especially against women, and Katharine fought his family over control of his care. Yes, there were indeed research monkeys at Riven Rock, and the custody battle was all over the local papers, much to the chagrin of the real Katharine. She was not one for the limelight, and I am pretty confident she would have hated the novel.

The Fiction

Interesting to me is how Katherine (why did Boyle change the spelling of Katharine? so annoying) and Stanley don’t start out as the main characters of the novel. The fictional Eddie O’Kane, one of Stanley’s caregivers, really takes center stage. It’s through his perspective that we learn about Stanley and all the issues surrounding his care. In the meantime, we also learn a lot about Eddie and how he serves as a counterpart to Stanley. Eddie’s alcoholism and misogyny become barriers to his relations with women, and the reader can’t help but make comparisons between the two men. Katherine is a distant figure at the beginning. In fact, Eddie calls her the ice queen. As the novel progresses, though, we come to see Eddie become committed to Stanley’s care. And Eddie eventually sees the same commitment in Katherine.

For me, the best part of the novel is how Boyle uses flashbacks to expose the early lives of Katherine and Stanley, creating the world and circumstances that brought Stanley to Riven Rock. And that name, “Riven Rock,” is the real name of the estate, and there actually was a tree there that had grown up through a split in a rock. Boyle turns this one interesting tidbit into a metaphor for the entire novel:

“It [the rock] was the very stuff of the earth’s bones, solid rock, impenetrable, impermeable, the symbol of everything that endures, and here it was split in two, riven like a yard of cheap cloth, and by a thing so small and insidious as an acorn . . . .”

Some historical purists would balk at how Boyle creates the scenes of intimacy between Katherine and Stanley. As a reader, I really craved trying to understand how a woman could remain married to a man so ill as Stanley. In creating their backstory, Boyle builds a heart-achingly beautiful love story.

The Language

I have become a lazy reader. Surfing the Internet does not require an advanced vocabulary. In fact, if you regularly write blog posts, you probably use Flesh Reading Ease analyses (as we do) to make sure your post is “readable.” What a joy it was, then, to actually have to stop every now and again and look up words in the dictionary. Boyle’s language seems to fit the time he was writing about, the early 1900s, using words like flagitious, verbigeration, susurrus, cynosure, marcelled. [Oops, there goes our Flesh Reading score.]

The Irony

The real Katharine was an advocate for women’s reproductive rights, smuggling diaphragms and financing research on the birth control pill. Katharine, however, apparently never needed any contraception method other than abstinence. The novel makes it clear that Katherine and Stanley had no sexual relations, but Armond Fields’ research can only imply this of the real couple. Katharine’s childlessness, marital status, and, yes, her wealth, allowed her to advocate for women’s reproductive rights. She had the time, the social status, and the money to carry on for those less fortunate.

Hardback or Ebook?

It’s not that I don’t read on the computer or, more likely, on my phone, but I tend to stick to magazine and newspaper articles. When it comes to books, I have resisted the ebook craze until now. I like the feel of the book in my hand. I gauge how much more I can read in a sitting by thumbing through the pages. Plus, I do write in my books (pencil only). Can’t do that with an ebook . . . or can I?

I had to put my library copy of Riven Rock on hold. I soon realized how long the book was, so I thought I’d better start reading the ebook while I waited for the hard copy. Wow, bookmarking pages and conducting searches did make it great to read Riven Rock for the purpose of writing about it. But, I will always want to write in my books. That act gives me a memory aid of what really struck me about a particular passage or chapter. The hardest thing about reading ebooks, though, is the hard part. Dang, when that iPad falls on your face after you fall asleep while reading, it really hurts!

Let me know what you think about the novel if or when you read it.