Experiment in Springtime
Tags: general-fiction,
In 2017, Syndicate Books published the collected works of Margaret Millar. Bless them for that. The quality of Millar’s writing, the strength and depth of her mind, her psychological insights and her unusual powers of observation and description should have kept her work in print forever.
Millar’s 1946 novel, Experiment in Springtime, appears in the second volume of the Syndicate collection, called Dawn of Domestic Suspense. The back cover blurb describes Experiment as:
A poignantly observed story of an unfortunately entered marriage, a novel that scrapes away the veneer of domestic bliss to reveal the heartbreaks, neuroses, and dissatisfactions of the mythical post-WWII nuclear family.
The story opens with Martha Pearson nursing her husband Charles back to health after a bout of anaphylactic shock. We see the distance between them right away. “He was no longer Charles, her husband, but a piece of anonymous, broken-down macinery.” The cause of the anaphylaxis was a pair of aspirin tablets Martha had given him to soothe a headache. She knew he was allergic, but she didn’t know the pills she gave him contained aspirin. Charles is sensitive, generous, permissive, weak-willed, and profoundly insecure about his wife, who he knows does not love him.
In his more bitter moments, he accuses her of giving him aspirin on purpose in an attept to kill him. In her more bitter moments, she accuses him of attempting to frame her for murder.
To the outside world, they look like the perfect couple, rich and secure in the peaceful house on the hill. Martha engineers her life to maintain that appearance. In doing so, she becomes cold, shutting out all feeling for herself and others.
While out shopping one day, she runs into her ex-boyfriend Steve, newly arrived in town after five years at war. Like many returning soldiers, he’s emotionally raw, nearly broke, and trying to find a home and a job in a society that’s struggling to reabsorb millions of soldiers it can’t yet accomodate. While Martha’s feelings are buried beneath miles of ice, his are right up on the surface.
Over time, we learn that Steve broke off their engagement when he enlisted in the army. He thought they were both too young to marry. Martha felt jilted. She cut off all communication with him and married Charles, his opposite, a wealthy, cultured, overly sensitive man who, despite his deep love for her, is clueless about how to love her.
So far, the story and characters sound like classic tropes. Millar’s gift lies in her ability to breathe life into these characters, to explore their depth and complexity with subtle nuance and great power. Even her throwaway descriptions are sharp. Here’s one of Martha’s feckless mother, an avoidant type, stuck in the past, who sees the dysfunction in her daughter’s marriage but won’t offer her the counsel she needs:
Her mother’s vagueness was a camouflage, a protection; if she pretended not to notice things, she would not be expected to do anything about them… She retired to her room to relive her life, without the mistakes.
This isn’t the type of genre fiction where you root for the lovers to live happily ever after. There are no good guys or bad guys. As in real life, there is no easy path for anyone, and the question everyone must answer is which compromises they’re willing to make, which hardships and regrets they’re willing to endure in exchange for which joys.
The marriage between Charles and Martha is a particularly well observed study of dysfunction showing how two people who are, on their own, decent, kind, intelligent and thoughtful, can together become apallingly toxic. In many cases, mismatched couples balance out each other’s extremes, complementing strengths and shoring up weaknesses. In some cases, however, the mismatches are fatal, and watching the couple interact is like watching an engine grind itself to pieces.
One of the most keenly observed episodes in this book comes when Martha visits Charles to tell him she wants a divorce. She is certain of this and absolutely determined to go through with it, until they start talking. Charles has no idea she’s come to say she wants a divorce. He has no intention of manipulating her, and yet, his mere presence is enough to undo her resolve and shut down her mind.
He’s like a field of Kryptonite. She can’t be near him, even when he’s being nice, without becoming the confused, neutered, utterly stifled person she had been in their marriage. The woman who walked into the scene with such vigor and purpose is suddenly sinking in a swamp of molasses.
This was Millar’s seventh novel. It’s not among her best, but it does show off her exceptional skills. She was thirty-one years old when this was published, and she was already producing better work than many better known authors would ever produce in their lifetimes. I’m amazed at her eye for detail and her ability to describe all sides of complex interpersonal dynamics. I wish more readers knew about her.