Kate’s 2¢: “Forever Amber” by Kathleen Winsor

“Forever Amber” by Kathleen Winsor

Kate’s 2¢: There is a plethora of in-depth biographies of authors and reviews of their books, that state the title, author, published date, and genre; as well as,     describing what the book is about, setting, and character(s), so, Kate’s 2¢ merely shares my thoughts about what I read.  I’m just saying…

Before I wrote my auto-biography  “Memoir Of A Silver Girl”, I researched what was happening the year I was born, I found historically significant events, the cost of living for daily items, newly released books that became popular, and the new movies that were  hot hits at the time, some of which became classics.

My mother was an avid reader, so I thought she might have read “Forever Amber” by Kathleen Winsor. Having read it, I doubt Mom would have read it around the time of my birth, but, it might have been in her library as one of the books Book of the Month sent. I remember looking on the title page of her many books, trying to find the ‘ng’ books. By today’s standards, “Forever Amber” is rather tame, but, I can understand how way back then, it caused a scandal and was banned. Of a similar genre were “Tom Jones” and “Moll Flanders”.

I can appreciate the many hours of research Winsor did to bring so much authenticity to this story. Of course, the ending was poetic justice, but, I wonder, if Amber and Bruce Carleton had known Amber was born of the manor (although on the wrong side of the sheets), would they have married.  But, duh, then that would be a whole other story!

It raises the question of should adopted children be told they are adopted or try to keep it a secret. Aunt Sara and Uncle Matt were not blood relatives. Should they have told Amber of her birth parents?

It was difficult to find a narrated copy of “Forever Amber”, but eventually, Project Gutenberg and BookShare had copies available. I’m still looking for other books by Winsor.

From Wikipedia,

Kathleen Winsor (October 16, 1919 – May 26, 2003) was an American author. She is best known for her first work, the 1944 historical novel Forever Amber. The novel, racy for its time, became a runaway bestseller even as it drew criticism from some authorities for its depictions of sexuality. She wrote seven other novels, none of which matched the success of her debut.

Winsor became interested in the Restoration period through her husband. Herwig was writing a paper for school on Charles II, and, out of boredom, Winsor read one of his research books.[1]

Her husband joined the military at the outbreak of World War II and spent five years with the United States Marines fighting in the Pacific theatre.[2] During that time, Winsor studied the Restoration period, claiming to have read 356 books on the subject. She began writing a novel based on her research. Her fifth draft of the novel was accepted for publication. The publishers promptly edited the book down to one-fifth of its original size. The resulting novel, Forever Amber, was 972 pages long.[1] The novel took readers on a frolic through Restoration England and offered vivid images of fashion, politics, affairs and public disasters of the time, including the plague and the Great Fire of London.

The book appeared in 1944. It attracted criticism for its blatant sexual references.[3] Fourteen U.S. states banned it as pornography and the Hays Office also condemned it, but within a month the movie rights had been purchased by Twentieth Century Fox.[3] The film, directed by Otto Preminger and starring Linda Darnell and Cornel Wilde, was released in 1947.[1]

Made a celebrity by the success of her novel, Winsor found it unthinkable to return to the married life she had known with Herwig and, in 1946, they divorced. Ten days later, she became the sixth wife of the big-band leader and clarinetist Artie Shaw, despite the fact that two years previously Shaw had castigated his then-wife, Ava Gardner, for reading such a “trashy novel” as Forever Amber.[1][4] The marriage to Shaw ended in 1948, and Winsor soon married her divorce attorney, Arnold Krakower. That marriage likewise ended in divorce, in 1953.[1][4] In 1956 Winsor married for the fourth time, to Paul A. Porter, a former head of the Federal Communications Commission. They remained married until Porter’s death in 1975.[2]

Winsor’s next commercially successful novel, Star Money, appeared in 1950, and was a portrait closely drawn from her experience of becoming a bestselling author. But in five subsequent novels, the last appearing in 1986 – The Lovers, Calais, Robert and Arabella, Jacintha, and Wanderers Eastward, Wanderers West – she failed to make as much of an impact. In 2000 a new edition of Forever Amber was published with a foreword by Barbara Taylor Bradford.