Here we are in Spain, in the midst of the strange confusion that seems to overtake all travelers to foreign countries: half-stunned, half-dismayed, totally exhausted by the physically crippling transatlantic flight—and a little open to amazement, all of which make the news that Duke University Press, the ideal home for my biography: Making It New: Doris Duke and the Invention of the New Woman seem a beautiful flower blooming unexpectedly in an arid place.
All of you friends, acquaintances and strangers who labor in the groves of academe know the university presses have taken over, in the last decades, many of the serious works of narrative non-fiction that have been abandoned by the commercial houses and which the invaluable small press lack the finances to produce and promote.
And so to find, for my “Doris,” a home at the university her father founded, where her grandfather and father are buried in the huge Gothic “chapel”—but NOT Doris, who by the terms of her will was cremated and scattered on the ocean off the coast of her beloved Hawaii—all of you will understand my delight and appreciation as well as my humility in the face of the many challenges I will encounter as I being to write…
Still image from “At Home with Doris Duke: Selections from her personal home movies”:
congratulations!
Sallie darling so pleased that you’ve undertaken the big one and you have the perfect publisher. The home movies are extraordinary especially the footage in Syria and Iran. Imagine her wealth in the Great Depression as she reshaped the shore in Hawaii to build Shangri La. She is not beautiful in the traditional sense–something about the lazy upper eyelids and pointed chin but she had a lovely shape and posture and wore clothes well. She clearly adored animals. She appears to have the authority and composure that comes from wealth. She never appears hurried or unpleasant. I cannot wait to “meet” her under your direction. Bravo Sallie. Bravo.
Perfect, Sallie–congrats!
Love the slant of the subtitle.