One of my favorite rituals is when E. hands over the New Yorker, checkmarked with his "pick hits" of the week. In the April 4 issue (maddeningly, not online, not even in archives) my pick was the profile of author Madeleine L'Engle, author of the much-loved A Wrinkle in Time and Meet the Austins series. I do remember reading most of these books, although they weren't life changers for me, as they were for some quoted in the article. (Read some other reflections here, here, and here.)

The profile starts off with some hagiography but it isn't entirely flattering and it raises some questions about the thin line L'Engle drew between her own life and her fiction. The line was apparently so thin that her children repeatedly say they "hated" some of their mother's books; indeed, her son, described as "the golden child" who's apparently represented a number of times, apparently suffered sufficiently to die young of chronic alcoholism.

We don't really know both sides of the story here, but the issue raised--the implications of depicting real people in fiction--is thought provoking. (The issue also crops up in blog writing, though I daresay without the timeless quality of the L'Engle books.) L'Engle, in the profile, doesn't seem bothered by it and neither the reporter nor the other people interviewed, including her children, have an answer. Nor do I.