catapult illustration

"Midcentury Modern" in CATAPULT is still attracting lots of attention. Many retweets and comments on twitter and facebook, and more on facebook from strangers since I posted it in Binders of Creative Nonfiction. (Should perhaps post it on other essay sites, but haven't felt like it.) I'm amazed at the number of women who feel their mothers were very similar, and by the number of women who see empathy and compassion in the piece, and by the number of women who particularly like the last line ("We might have liked each other"), a line I feel particularly guilty about.

I noticed later that the illustration is actually from Good Housekeeping, 1965. I always forget that this perky Patty Duke look was very much a sixties phenomenon, just as hippies were a sixties phenomenon, and in fact this could be a girl at my high school. It's an inspired choice, really, absolutely the right era, and I think the illustration probably attracts readers.