Among the Beautiful Beasts: A Novel

by Lori McMullen

Overview

Set in the early 1900s, Among the Beautiful Beasts is the untold story of the early life of Marjory Stoneman Douglas, known in her later years as a tireless activist for the Florida Everglades. After a childhood spent in New England estranged from her father and bewildered by her mother, who fades into madness, Marjory marries a swindler thirty years her senior. The marriage nearly destroys her, but Marjory finds the courage to move to Miami, where she is reunited with her father and begins a new life as a journalist in that bustling, booming frontier town. Buoyed by a growing sense of independence and an affair with a rival journalist, Marjory embraces a life lived at the intersection of the untamed Everglades and the rapacious urban development that threatens it. When the demands of a man once again begin to swallow Marjory’s own desires and dreams, she sees herself in the vulnerable, inimitable Everglades and is forced to decide whether to commit to a life of subjugation or leap into the wild unknown. Told in chapters that alternate between an urgent midnight chase through the wetlands and extensive narrative flashbacks, Among the Beautiful Beasts is at once suspenseful and deeply reflective.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781647421069
Publisher:	She Writes Press
Publication date:	06/01/2021
Pages:	328
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 8.50(h) x (d)

About the Author

Lori McMullen grew up in unincorporated Dade County, outside of Miami, and now lives with her family in Chicago. She is a graduate of Dartmouth College and Harvard Law School, and her short fiction has appeared in the Tampa Review and Slush Pile magazine. Among the Beautiful Beasts is her first novel.

Editorial Reviews

The magic of the not-yet-urbanized swampland and Marjory’s flowering into womanhood merge in McMullen’s prose . . . A fantastic debut that showcases an important figure and the landscape she worked to preserve.”
—Kirkus Reviews

“An atmospheric and engrossing story about the experiences that shape us, the passions that move us, and the discoveries that bring meaning to the rest of our lives. I didn’t just learn about this powerful woman, though her story is fascinating . . . I learned about myself.”
—Laura Munson, best-selling author of Willa’s Grove and founder of Haven Writing Programs

From the Publisher

★ 2021-06-01
A novel based on the early life of writer, suffragette, and environmentalist Marjory Stoneman Douglas.

In 1896 in Providence, Rhode Island, 5-year-old Marjory Stoneman lives in a home filled with her mother Lillian’s singing; her father, Frank, sometimes reads to her from volumes such as Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. But when Frank can’t keep steady work, Lillian leaves, with Marjory in tow. They move to Marjory’s grandparents’ home in Taunton, Massachusetts. Soon after, Lillian suffers a breakdown and ends up in Butler’s Sanitarium; she returns home not quite the same, and Marjory takes refuge in literature and the hope that her father will someday visit her. Years later, her grandmother helps her attend Wellesley College; there, Marjory discovers her passions for nature and writing. After graduation, she marries Kenneth Douglas, a much-older grifter whose inability to procure honest work renders them destitute. Thankfully, Marjory’s uncle, Dr. Edward Stoneman, finds her and reveals that her father’s in Florida, running the Miami Herald. Marjory soon becomes the society editor of that paper. When Lilla, Frank’s new wife, suggests that the capable young writer ask for more serious work, she does so, which leads to her writing about women’s suffrage and a decadeslong interest in the Florida Everglades. McMullen crafts a masterful portrait of a women’s suffrage and conservation icon, showing how Marjory’s life is characterized by the line, “Sustaining the soul of another means starving my own.” Her generous heart and intelligence seemingly conspire to place others in her care who are far less capable than she is, including Lillian and Kenneth. This tragic streak ends after she meets fellow newspaper writer Andy Walker of the Miami Metropolis, whose “ideas had been gifts, not expenses.” The magic of the not-yet-urbanized swampland and Marjory’s flowering into womanhood merge in McMullen’s prose: “The phosphorescent sea rolled on and on, over our toes...until we were standing together in liquid stardust.” Later, World War I rattles the life she and Andy plan together; by the end, however, the author effectively shows how Marjory’s belief in her own powers helps her build a life of her own choosing.

A fantastic debut that showcases an important figure and the landscape she worked to preserve.

Kirkus Reviews