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Giving a voice to a silent and often overlooked generation of women, part-time East Hampton resident and author Erica Abeel’s adventure drama “Wild Girls” (Texas Review Press) proclaims the 1950s female as complicated, conflicted and ultimately fearless.
Or at least the protagonists are, in this, her fifth novel.
“A lot of women of this generation were pushed into the single model of raising a family,” the author said from her apartment in New York City during a recent interview. “They had no other choice. And the ones who pushed back—particularly the ones who pushed back—well, they’re the interesting ones!”
Some would call them “wild” because they went against the grain, defying the norms and expectations of the times and rejecting convention—often at a great price.
And Ms. Abeel should know. She was one. In fact, one of the “girls” in the new novel, Brooke, is loosely modeled after herself. “My characters in fiction are really composites of people,” she said. “But Brooke is most like me.”
Eschewing a memoir for this particular story—she is not a fan of the genre, with a few noted exceptions—she said she wanted to create a work of fiction, rooted in reality. “I wanted the freedom of fiction,” she said.
Readers can find Allen Ginsberg and other historical figures in there, alongside Ms. Abeel’s creations. “There is my own version of Yoko Ono,” she said with a laugh.
Satire is a strength of this writer’s—as evidenced in her previous work, which includes an essay collection in addition to her novels—and a muscle she likes to flex. Hence her desire for freedom.
The sweeping tale focuses on three friends who meet in college and set out on their own paths—the roads less taken at that time—to varying degrees of sacrifice and challenge, all the while drawing strength from a shared womanhood. Mixing fact and fiction gives the prose a fierce velocity. “I wanted to be both mocking and acerbic, to poke some fun at those ‘make-work’ jobs—you know, that all the female English majors in the ’50s who aspired to careers in publishing got right out of college. The most trivial ‘make-work’ jobs.”
She also found inspiration for this book in the music of the era. “Johnny Ray and doo-wop—I would play those songs while I was writing because they really capture the feeling of the ’50s,” she said.
The adventures of the titular wild girls take them to the fictional town of Ilseford, based on East Hampton.
The characters from Isleford are in part composites of people Ms. Abeel has met on the East End. “There is a real estate developer I based loosely on Coco Brown,” she said. Harry “Coco” Brown Jr. developed land in Sagaponack in the mid-1990s, built by top-tier architects.
Ms. Abeel was even inspired by a sign she saw in Southampton, for Conscience Point. She borrowed the name for the title of her 2009 novel, a gothic love story with her signature themes of reinvention and renewal.
Reinvention to the wild girls of the ’50s was not really an option, seeing as most of them were really challenged in inventing their own lives—let alone reinventing. But an intrepid few tried.
“I saw [the Beat poet] Gregory Corso speak on a panel once, and he was asked why there were so few women writers in the Beats,” she recalled. “He basically said that they were there, and he knew them, but their families put them in institutions. If you were female and a rebel in the ’50s, you were thought to be crazy.”
A college professor, former dancer, journalist and film critic, Ms. Abeel grew up in Roslyn and found an early love of swimming that has stayed with her to this day. “I am happiest when I am in the water,” she said, “and love to swim long distances.”
To that end, Ms. Abeel avails herself of local swimming spots such as Louse Point, Little Albert’s Landing and Sammy’s Beach.
When she first started coming to the East End, she’d rent artists’ home on Springs-Fireplace Road. Artists would trust her with their work in the home, and she’d get to live surrounded by all that art. Later, when her children were young, she loved to rent in Sag Harbor, which she said she feels is great for young families.
Ms. Abeel loves taking advantage of the full season on the East End and comes out as often as she can.
“I love the collective sigh of the locals after Labor Day,” she said with a laugh. “My boyfriend and I love to go to the Longhouse Reserve, and hike Cedar Point. Walking the dog along the ocean and Barnes Landing and the bay. I stay in the water as late as possible in the year. I just love to recharge out here. And I love the pace after the madness of the city.”
Yet her fast pace continues. As a Huffington Post film critic, Ms. Abeel just finished covering the New York Film Festival and as she admits, right before a book comes out, there is just so much to do.
She is grateful for the East End home she shares with her boyfriend, Richard Adrian, as she is currently researching a murder that happened in East Hampton for a future book. Another book in the works is a satirical account of women in the ’70s, “the early days of feminism,” she said.
Finding time to write is challenging. “People resent it when you say you have to write. Children get angry. The boyfriend gets annoyed. It takes a lot of focus. That’s the hardest thing—dealing with distractions and maintaining relationships.”
She rarely suffers from writer’s block and likes to write first thing in the morning. “Mornings are sacred. As the day goes on it’s harder to keep people from interrupting,” she said. “I used to have a tennis game in the morning. Now I have no game,” she added ruefully.
Ms. Abeel is she is very proud of “Wild Girls,” a story she felt compelled to tell, so the sacrifices and hard work are worth it.
“I hope to have told the stories of a few women who didn’t listen to what they were told to do and followed their own paths,” she said.
And regardless of the era, women today can relate to the women in this book—their challenges and triumphs.
“The themes remain relevant. Women are still meeting challenges head on and reinventing themselves,” she said.
And as for her own daughter, now in her 40s: “Well, she is wonderfully capable and inspired by my workaholism,” Ms. Abeel said with a laugh.
And maybe grateful that her mom, like Brooke in “Wild Girls,” marched to the beat of her own drum.
Erica Abeel will sign “Wild Girls” during the Parrish Art Museum’s patron cocktail party benefit on Saturday, November 26, from 5 to 8 p.m. Tickets start at $150. visit parrishart.org or call 631-283- 2118 extension 150. Find out more about Erica Abeel at her website, ericaabeel.com.
on Nov 21, 2016