Susanna Kearsley: Finding romance in 1970s TV
Susanna Kearsley, author of A Desperate Fortune (out today!), recalls how the Little Women TV show helped start her on her authorly journey.
Susanna: The return of Outlander to TV this weekend has me thinking fondly back to other TV adaptations of grand, epic novels, and to one I waited for each night with that same level of excitement.
In those days, you had to wait. There was no DVR, no Netflix, and no binge-watching. We didn't even have a VCR till I was nearly out of high school.
In those days, three TV networks reigned supreme and what you couldn't find on them you watched on PBS. A different world. But it was also, for its faults, the era of the miniseries: Roots, The Winds of War, The Thorn Birds, Shogun, Princess Daisy — these were huge events that dominated television viewing for a week or more, with everybody watching and discussing them.
I watched them all, and many others, but the one that I remember most of all, the one that satisfied — and shaped — my 12-year-old romantic soul, was one that brought to life a book I loved to pieces: Little Women.
When that miniseries aired, my family understood that for those nights, whatever else was on, the TV set was MINE.
The cast had many stars and favorites: Dorothy McGuire, Greer Garson, Eve Plumb, Meredith Baxter, Susan Dey and William Shatner. It had all those pseudo-real '70s sets and great costumes combined with a script that kept all of the bits I loved best from the novel. In short, it was all that my pre-teen self hoped it would be.
And it taught me a few things I keep with me still.
As a writer, the story itself had already informed me that love wasn't always found where you expected to find it; that the best-looking prince of a guy wasn't always your true prince. I'd learned, just from reading the novel, that love wasn't easy. It broke hearts and friendships and hurt people, sometimes.
But knowing these things in an abstract sense wasn't the same thing as seeing them there on the screen of my TV. To watch Laurie's face as Jo told him her feelings, and then to watch Jo's face as she started falling in love with the older professor — a man I myself found attractive — gave meaning to all of those scenes I had read in a way that stayed with me.
I understood, then, that the best way to show an emotion is not through a character's words, but their smallest expressions — to take what an actor would visually do and try putting that down on the page for the reader to "see."
The miniseries taught me, too, that romance doesn't happen in a vacuum. It involves more than two people. This was also in the book, I know, but once again the force of seeing all of the relationships within the family played out on the screen had greater impact.
I cried when Beth died, as I'd done each time I read the book, but now I saw how this one incident shaped Jo's resolve to live her life the way it needed to be lived, and how her own romance became a quiet kind of triumph.
Above all, having seen that miniseries left me with the strong opinion that, while movies may be the more glitzy option, television really is the better way to bring to life a novel.
I have seen and really liked the varied movie adaptations of the book, but Little Women has a sprawling, richly tangled story that needs time and space to weave its magic.
Much like Outlander. (I'd hate to think how much of THAT amazing story would have been left out if it had been condensed to one two-hour movie.)
And somewhere out there, I've no doubt, another young woman is feeding their romantic soul with Claire and Jamie, learning storytelling lessons that will stay with them forever.
About A Desperate Fortune (courtesy of Sourcebooks Landmark):
For nearly three hundred years, the cryptic journal of Mary Dundas has kept its secrets. Now, amateur codebreaker Sara Thomas travels to Paris to crack the cipher.
Jacobite exile Mary Dundas is filled with longing-for freedom, for adventure, for the family she lost. When fate opens the door, Mary dares to set her foot on a path far more surprising and dangerous than she ever could have dreamed.
As Mary's gripping tale of rebellion and betrayal is revealed to her, Sara faces events in her own life that require letting go of everything she thought she knew-about herself, about loyalty, and especially about love. Though divided by centuries, these two women are united in a quest to discover the limits of trust and the unlikely coincidences of fate.
Find out more about Susanna and her books at susannakearsley.com.