Vanishing Act - Lapham's Quarterly

11/15/2019 Vanishing Act | Lapham’s Quarterly
Vanihing Act
arara Newhall Follett wa a prodig who tranfixed the literar world—and then vanihed.
 Paul Collin (/contriutor/paul-collin)
Famil photograph of arara Newhall Follett. Via Farkolia (http://www.farkolia.org/the-galler/).
Curio – Lapham’s Quarterly | Vanishing Act

Audio rought to ou  Curio (http://curio.io/), a Lapham’ Quarterl partner
I
n a New Hamphire apartment during the winter of 1923, thi tpewritten notice wa fatened
quarel againt a cloed door:
Nood ma come into thi room if the door i hut tight (if it i hut not quite latched it
i all right) without knocking. The peron in thi room if he agree that one hall come in
will a “come in,” or omething like that and if he doe not agree to it he will a “Not
et, pleae,” or omething like that. The door ma e hut if nood i in the room ut if
a peron want to come in, knock and hear no anwer that mean there i no one in the
room and he mut not go in.

Reaon. If the door i hut tight and a peron i in the room the hut door mean that the
peron in the room wihe to e left alone.
Through the door could e heard furiou clacking and carriage return: the ound, in fact, of an eight-
ear-old girl writing her firt novel.
In 1923, tpewriter were hardl a child’ plathing, ut to thoe following the famil of critic and
editor Wilon Follett, it wa a grand educational experiment. He’d alread written of hi daughter
arara in Harper’, decriing a girl who  the age of three wa conumed with letter and word.
“he wa alwa eeing A’ in the gale of houe and H’ in footall goalpot,” he recalled. One da
he’d wandered into Wilon’ office and dicovered hi tpewriter.
https://www.laphamsquarterly.org/celebrity/vanishing-act 1/11
“Tell me a tor aout it,” he demanded.
Thi wa arara’ wa of aking for an explanation, and after he demontrated the wondrou
machine, he took to it fiercel. A tpewriter, her parent realized, could unleah a torrential flow of
thought from a gifted child who till lacked the coordination to write in pencil.
“In a multitude of wa,” Wilon Follett reported, “we ecome more and more convinced of the
expedienc of letting the tpewriter e, o far a a machine can, the center and genei of the firt
procee.”
 five, arara wa eing homechooled  her mother, and writing a tale titled The Life of the
pinning Wheel, the Rocking-Hore, and the Rait. Her facination with flower and utterflie
loomed from her tpewriter into wild and exuerant poem and fair tale.  1922, at the age of
even, he wa verifing upon muic:
When I go to orchetra rehearal,
there are often everal paage for the
Triangle and Tamourine together.
When the are together,
the ound like a ig piece of metal
that ha roken in thouandth
and i falling to the ground.
The warning notice on her door the following ear, though, marked a new project: oung arara wa
attempting an entire novel. On ome da the eight ear old topped four thouand word. While her
note to her plamate and famil overflowed with warmth, he wa aolute in guarding her time to
write. Neighoring children who didn’t undertand were ruquel dimied.
“You don’t undertand wh I have m work to do—ecaue, at thi particular time, ou have none at
all,” he napped in a letter to a complaining plamate.
A 1923 paed into another ear and et another, he wrote and rewrote her tale of a girl who
venture into the wood and vanihe into nature. Friend, when needed, could alwa e imagined. “I
pretend,” he once explained, “that eethoven, the two traue, Wagner
(http://laphamquarterl.org/contriutor/wagner), and the ret of the compoer are till living, and the go
kating with me.”
T
here’ a peculiar comfort in imagining the companionhip of great compoer, for it i among
them that a child prodig i at home. Mozart (http://laphamquarterl.org/contriutor/mozart)
rule the hopeful parent: homechooled, compoing harpichord minuet at the age of five, plaing the
Viennee court at ix, viiting Johann Chritian ach in London at age eight. He wa one of the
earliet celerated child performer, and like arara, he wa orn to the profeion—hi father wa a
violin mater. Then again, in ome art, there i almot an inevitailit to the appearance of prodigie.
Palo Picao’ charming ullfight and Pigeon—drawn in 1890, when he wa nine ear old—can till
elicit admiration at exhiition and wie nodding. Ah, even then hi talent hone through.
And et other pa  more quietl. We do not dwell upon o Ficher, even though  the time
he wa eight hi mother wa having to write newpaper ad to find him worth che partner. And no
parent toda u Zerah flah card for their oung geniu, though math prodig Zerah Colurn wa
once a famou a Mozart. The on of a Vermont carpenter, Zerah’ talent wa exhiited in 1810 at the
age of five. oon Zerah wa gaining audience with John Quinc Adam and letter of introduction
from Wahington Irving (http://laphamquarterl.org/contriutor/irving).  eight he mentall calculated
in front of an audience that a Fermat numer wa not in fact prime, an almot unthinkale feat for
even an adult mathematician. Yet the danger of Zerah’ overearing and haple father wa oviou
enough that otonian raied a fund to educate the o in New ngland. Hi father turned the
mone down: there wa a igger fortune waiting on the road.
Toda, we hear of Mozart, ut not of Colurn. Little arara might kate with one, ut not the other.

 1926—man draft, one a iter, and one manucript-detroing houe fire later—her
ook had the title of The Houe Without Window. It wa, he explained, the tale of eperip, “a
child who ran awa from loneline, to find companion in the wood—animal friend.” The tale
tretched to over fort thouand word.
“Dadd and I are correcting the manucript,” arara reported, “putting in and taking out, to cop it,
and get it all read to go to the printer.”
It wa to e a mall vanit jo, ut her father had a uggetion. He’d een working for a while with
Knopf in New York; what if he paed it along to them? When Knopf ’ repone arrived addreed to
arara—“a lue letter with the famou white orzoi eal”—he wrote to a friend what happened next:
I impl threw melf on the floor and creamed, either with fear for what it might
contain, with jo for getting it at lat, or with terrific excitement of the whole thing.
There i a feeling, after ou have een waiting a long time for anthing, there i a feeling
that, when it reall come, it mut e impoile—
a dream—an optical illuion—a cro etween thoe three thing…

Now: “What doo zhoo fink???” It i eperip, The Houe Without Window, m tor, m
tor in New York, with the Knopf, to e pulihed!!... pulihed!!!!!!!!
he had jut turned twelve.
T
he Houe Without Window appeared in Feruar 1927 to overwhelming praie. “A Mirror of
the Child Mind,” announced a New York Time headline: “the mot authentic and unalloed
document of a tranient and hitherto unrecorded phae in platic intelligence…[a] trul remarkale
little ook.” The featured arara on the front page of that da’ Photogravure Picture ection,
howing her correcting a et of galle proof.
The aturda Review of Literature found the ook “almot unearal eautiful.” It i not hard to ee
wh. The opening line evoke a fair-tale iolation: “In a little rown hingled cottage on one of the
foothill of Mt. Varcroi, there lived with her father and mother, Mr. and Mr. igleen, a little girl
named eperip. he wa rather lonel…” eperip emerge from the foret dreed in garland to tr
to lure other children awa, including her own ounger iter:
“Look, I’d dre ou like thi, with fern and flower and utterflie…The ee gather hone from the
flower, which the would hare with u.”
“ee ting,” aid Fleuri, hrinking awa; “the ting, and the hurt, eperip.”
Unale to convince anone to join her outdoor—in her “houe without window”—eperip
eventuall diappear altogether, tranformed into a wood nmph. It i a haunting tale that merge
archetpal mth with a childhood deire to run awa.
oon arara wa eing aked to review the latet A.A. Milne for the paper, and H.L. Mencken
(http://laphamquarterl.org/contriutor/mencken) wrote to her parent that “ou are ringing up the
greatet critic we heard of in America.” Follett’ next plan—“to ecome a pirate” and take to the ea
for her new ook—wa announced in the Time.
arara wa famou.
CONGRATULATION MY DAR PRIP, one telegram arriving at the Follett houe read.
YOU HAV DON WHAT MANY AN ADULT HA FAILD TO DO.
ut one critic wa unimpreed.
“I can conceive of no greater handicap for the writer etween the age of nineteen and thirt-nine,”
thundered Anne Carroll Moore in the New York Herald Triune, “than to have pulihed a ucceful
ook etween the age of nine and twelve.”
When I do a how, the whole how
revolve around me, and if I don’t how
up, the can jut forget it.
—thel Merman, 1955
The creator of the Children’ Room at the New York Pulic Lirar and one of the mot powerful
critic of children’ literature in America, Moore’ qualm were not with arara’ writing—“I have
onl word of praie for the tor itelf. The Houe Without Window i exquiite”—ut that it wa
pulihed at all. “It i plaing with fire,” he warned. “What price will arara have to pa for her ‘ig
da’ at the tpewriter?”
arara needed to e outide plaing with children her own age, Moore declared—and to grow up
unurdened  earl fame. “There are no atifaction comparale to a free and paciou childhood
with a clear title to one’ own good name at maturit.”
Yet there wa ome precedent for arara’ career. even ear earlier, eleven-ear-old Horace Wade
pulihed hi thriller In The hadow of Great Peril. More ook followed, a well a encouraging letter
from F. cott Fitzgerald (http://laphamquarterl.org/contriutor/fitzgerald), and a jo from William
Randolph Heart at the Chicago American. Wade’ writing lacked Follett’ apiration—it wa genre
tuff, full of “chum” and datardl outlaw—ut it hinted that the child author could grow into
ucce.
Other, though, were protected from their juvenilia. The mot famou child author efore Wade
appeared jut one ear earlier, with Dai Ahford and her ludicrou tale The Young Viiter: Or, Mr.
alteena’ Plan. Opening with the immortal line “Mr alteena wa an elderl man of 42 and wa fond
of aking peaple to ta with him,” the ook wa a claic of unintentional hilarit. It wa harmle to
Ahford; he’d written the ook a a nine ear old in 1890, and pulihed it from the afe ditance of
twent-nine ear later. he ecame a celerit for having een a child, ut wa not a child celerit.
ut arara wa having none of thi, and none of Moore’ criticim.
“It i urel ver rah to lam down into the mud a childhood and a tem of living that ou know
nothing aout,” he reponded in a fier letter. “I am ver much amued at the favorale review which
are eing written—I do not take them at all erioul—ut I do take erioul an article which ditort
into a mierale caricature m living, m education, m whole peronalit.”
To read her ook “a if I were trannized over,” arara wrote, inulted her and her parent. “The
ook,” he inited, “i an expreion of jo—no more.”

ven a review rolled in, arara planned an ode he’d long dreamt of: going to ea a a
hip’ crewman. That he wa thirteen mattered little to her, and at length her parent found a
lumer chooner to take her aoard a a paenger—one who inited on doing chore.
Following her journe up to Nova cotia, Follett’ next ook, The Voage of the Norman D, wa written
at a white heat. The voage took place in Jul, the final manucript wa in Knopf ’ hand 
Novemer, and the ook wa in tore  March. It i the work of an adult in the making: not jut a
charming prodig, ut an artit plaing for keep.
Follett ketche her firt interview with the chooner’ captain with droll eloquence:
I poke to the captain firt of all, ut ver vaguel and dreamil, gazing aout me—
facinated, enraptured, all the time. I looked at the long, huge oom, with the ail
frapped cloel round them; at the great, plendid mat; at the man rope decending
over lock and made fat on elaing pin along the ide of the oat; at the doule and
triple heet lock; and, aove all, at the ratline and hroud, into which I longed to go
up. The next minute I had jumped upon the panker oom and crawled along to the ver
end, hanging lightl over the water, where I upported melf  one of the wire lift.

“Oh,” aid the captain, “I ee ou’re a girl a like to clim around.”
The ook’ confidence tunned reviewer on oth ide of the Atlantic. Follett wa no longer a cute
“child authore”: he wa an author.
“It ingenioune i preerved, et emellihed,  a literar craftmanhip which would do credit to
an experienced writer,” the Time Literar upplement marveled from London. The aturda Review
featured her ook alongide Doroth Parker (http://laphamquarterl.org/contriutor/parker)’ latet, and
declared it “a fine, utained, and vivid piece of writing.” And et, mued the New York Time, “Mi
arara Newhall Follett celerated her fourteenth irthda jut twelve da efore the pulication.”
ut in that week efore pulication, Wilon Follett delivered devatating new. He’d recentl turned
fort, and—in a plot development he’d have truck down a painfull trite in an novel—he wa
leaving arara and her mother Helen for a ounger woman.
“You a Helen need me,” arara pleaded to her father, “and right ou are, ut I need ou, too.” ut
at the moment of her greatet triumph, arara wa aandoned  the man who had fotered her
amition.
W
ilon left them with little mone. At firt, Helen tried to pin neceit into adventure: the
would take their tpewriter to ea, ail to Tahiti, and write ook! ut  eptemer 1929,
arara found herelf tranded and alone with famil friend in Lo Angele. It wa unearale: he
fled to an Francico, hid in a hotel, and wrote poetr. ut he’d een reported a a runawa, and when
police urt into her room, the narrowl kept her from ecaping through the window.
“I loathe Lo Angele,” he explained to reporter.
The tor made national new; a Time headline reminded reader, “Cae of arara Follett Recall
Feat of Chopin, Mozart, and Other.” Helen and arara were reunited in New York, ut their
finance were o dire that upon turning ixteen in March 1930, arara had to find work. Her timing
wa awful, coming month after the Wall treet crah. After a coure in horthand and uine tping
—a “decidedl more tawdr ue of it magic,” he mued—arara wa getting up earl ever morning
to ride the uwa to a ecretarial jo.
“M dream are going through their death flurrie,” he wrote that June. “I thought the were all afel
uried, ut ometime the tir in their grave, making m hearttring twinge. I mean no particular
dream, ou undertand, ut the whole radiant flock of them together—with their rainow wing,
iridecent, right, oaring, gloriou, ulime. The are ding efore the teel javelin and arrow of a
world of Time and Mone.”
Improal, he kept writing: he took to waking up earl efore work to toil on a new ook, Lot
Iland. et around a New York couple who get hipwrecked on a deerted iland, the ook pivot on a
dilemma: after the’re dicovered, the woman doen’t want to go ack. Lot Iland’ opening line how
a teenaged author turned older and araded  Manhattan:
Not even a cat wa out. The rain urged down with a tead drone. It meant to harm
New York and everone there. The gutter could not contain it. Long ago the had
depaired of the jo and urrendered. ut the rain paid no attention to them…New York
people never lived in houe or even in urrow. The inhaited cell in tone cliff. The
timed the cooking of their egg  the nearet traffic light. If the light went wrong, o did
the egg…

“I don’t like civilization,” he aid, to the rain.
 1934, Follett had written her third and fourth ook—Lot Iland, and a rik travelogue on the
Appalachian Trail called Travel Without a Donke. ut worn down  ix ear without the
encouragement of a father or an editor, the manucript finall topped. Intead, he found a kindred
oul in an outdoorman named Nickeron Roger, and the eloped.
America’ next great novelit wa now without a high-chool degree, without work, and a teen ride.
Yet he wa not unhapp—at firt. he ackpacked through urope, and etween ecretarial jo in
New York and oton, he dicovered dance clae. he took ome ummer off to travel wet for
dance clae at Mill College, which he loved: it wa a tate of the college life that he’d een denied.
ut returning to her huand in rookline, Maachuett, in late 1939, he wa haken once again,
wore even than  her father’ aandonment.
“There i omeod ele…” he wrote to a friend. “I had it coming to me, I know.” Her depair wa o
keen that he could onl ret with the help of “leeping tuff.” oon her correpondence darkened
ominoul: “On the urface thing are terril, terril calm, and wrong…I till think there i a chance
that the outcome will e a happ one, ut I would have to think that anwa, in order to live; o ou
can draw an concluion ou like from that!”
The concluion to e drawn wa perhap the wort one poile. On the evening of Decemer 7, 1939,
he and Nick quarreled, and  a friend’ account he left later that evening.
he never returned.

ome prodigie flourih, ome diappear. ut arara Roger did leave one lat comment to the
world aout writing—a rief piece in a 1933 iue of Horn ook that earnetl recommend that
parent give their own children tpewriter. “Perhap there would impl e a terrific wholeale
detruction of tpewriter,” he admit. “An effort would have to e made to impre upon children
that a tpewriter i magic.” o i the child at it, ut Follett doen’t hint that he had now een
pending ear attling povert. The father who gave her that tpewriter doen’t appear in the piece,
either. he’d een o angr at him in one letter that he napped, “He in’t what ou’d call a man.”
Miamoto Muahi, Tokugawa-period warrior known in Japan a the “word aint,” woodcut  Utagawa Kuniohi, c. 1838. ©
Victoria & Alert Mueum, Art Reource, NY.
ut her triulation were a appallingl timele a the fair tale that he o loved. Decade later,
o Ficher would e left  hi mother at eventeen to eentiall fend for himelf, and while that
ma not have created hi famed eccentricit, it hardl helped. Nor wa the fact that he’d allowed him
to drop out of chool at the age of ixteen.
And what of the promiing mathematical prodig, Zerah Colurn? After traveling to urope to e
exhiited  hi father, the o did not return for twelve ear—hi father now dead overea, and
Zerah himelf nearl roke and hi talent quandered. Financial trait might have led to hi
pulication in 1833 of A Memoir of Zerah Colurn, Written  Himelf. Unknown toda, it i the firt
child-celerit memoir. Colurn wa o alienated from hi exitence that he wrote it in the third
peron—a if he too were gawking at thi famed phenomenon called Zerah.
A wahed-up performer at nineteen, he arrived ack in Vermont and knocked on the door of hi
former home. “The inquired of an elderl woman who wa at the door, if he knew where the widow
Colurn lived? he replied that he wa the woman…hi own mother wa a ignorant of the child he
had nured and provided for until he wa ix ear old, a if he had never een him efore.”
Zerah Colurn had alo diappeared—o thoroughl that he couldn’t reappear even when he wanted
to.
N
ick waited two week to go to the police, and another four month to requet a miing-
peron ulletin: he claimed he wa waiting for arara to return. Nood in oton’ morgue
matched her, and the ulletin, iued under her married name, went unnoticed  the pre:
rookline. 139 4-22-40 3:38 pm Maccracken. Miing from rookline ince Dec. 7,
1939, arara Roger, married, age 26, 5-7, 125, fair complexion, lack eerow, rown
ee, dark auurn hair worn in a long o, left houlder lightl higher than right.
Occaionall wear horn-rimmed glae.
It wan’t until 1966, when Helen coauthored a lim academic tud on her daughter, that the pre
realized arara Newhall Follett wa miing at all.
In the intervening ear, Wilon Follett wrote a peculiar anonmou ea for The Atlantic—“To a
Daughter, One Year Lot,” in Ma 1941—which expreed muted guilt and amazement: “Could
Helen Hae e lot for ten da without a trace? Could Thoma Mann
(http://laphamquarterl.org/contriutor/mann)? Could Churchill
(http://laphamquarterl.org/contriutor/churchill)? And now it i getting on toward fort time ten
da…”
Helen, elatedl dicovering how little Nickeron Roger had looked for arara, pent 1952 urging
police to eek omeone now miing for thirteen ear. “There i alwa foul pla to e conidered,”
he hinted to rookline’ police chief. To Nickeron, he wa lunter: “All of thi ilence on our part
look a if ou had omething to hide concerning arara’ diappearance…You cannot elieve that I
hall it idle during m lat few ear and not make whatever effort I can to find out whether ar i
alive or dead, whether, perhap, he i in ome intitution uffering from amneia or nervou
reakdown.”
he never found her.
xtraordinar oung talent are all the more dependent on the mot ordinar utenance. ut intead
of a home and a college education, what arara Follett got wa author copie and ellowing
newpaper clipping. Thi girl—who hould have een America’ next great literar woman—wa
aandoned  the two men he truted, and her fame forgotten  a pulic that he never truted in
the firt place. Her writing, out of print for man decade, onl exit toda in ix archival oxe at
Columia Univerit’ lirar. Taken together, the are the addet reading in all of American
literature.
Then again, her work alwa wa aout ecape. Her mteriou diappearance echoe with the final
word of The Houe Without Window, when the lonel eperip finall vanihe forever into the
wood.
“he would e inviile forever to all mortal, ave thoe few who have mind to elieve, ee to ee,”
Follett wrote. “To thee he i ever preent, the pirit of Nature—a prite of the meadow, a naiad of
lake, a nmph of the wood.”
CONTRIUTOR
Paul Collin (/contriutor/paul-collin)
Paul Collin teache creative writing at Portland tate Univerit; appear on NPR a it
“literar detective”; and i the author of dgar Allan Poe: The Fever Called Living, Duel with
the Devil: The True tor of How Alexander Hamilton and Aaron urr Teamed Up to Take On
America’ Firt enational Murder Mter, and The Murder of the Centur: The Gilded Age
Crime That candalized a Cit and parked the Taloid War.

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