When Foley Craddock Tore Off My Grandfather’s Thumb: The Collected Stories of Ruth Moore and Eleanor Mayo has been released by Blackberry Books.
The book has been a fifteen year project which came to fruition in gruiling, focused months. The book is currently in Maine bookstores, but should be available from Amazon.com soon enough.
Ruth Moore was a best-selling Maine novelist from the 40’s, 50’s, 60’s and 70’s. Her novel Spoonhandle spent the summer of 1947 on the New York Times bestseller list. It was purchased by 20th Century Fox and became the Oscar nominated film Deep Waters (Henry King, 1948). During her career Moore wrote 14 novels and 3 collections of poetry/ballads.
Eleanor Mayo was also a notable Maine novelist popular in the 1940’s. She published five books beginning with Turn Home in 1945, which in 1950 was made into the (now obscure) film noir Tarnished (Harry Keller, 1950).
Ruth was introduced to Eleanor in the early 40’s by Ruth’s sister Esther (my grandmother). Ruth took the younger Eleanor back to California, where Ruth was managing a fruit ranch for the novelist Alice Tisdale Hobart. They returned to Maine in 1947 and remained together until Eleanor’s death in 1981.
Ruth was my great aunt. I spent a great deal of time in my childhood visiting her–discussing books, writing, etc. Trading her Archy and Mehitabel for my Allen Ginsberg.
Much of the work in this collection was literally discovered (by me) in an old sea captains chest filed away with some galley-proofs, 19th century navigation books and college memorabilia. Inside the chest a small pile of papers proved to be a packet of finished manuscripts (complete with cover sheet and submission notes). A few pieces have been published previously (The New Yorker, Saturday Review, Harper’s Bazaar), but most are published her for the first time.
I’ll publish more information, reviews, etc. soon…