This is the last part of the final chapter of Marguerite Young’s epic novel. It was read and recorded in 1975 by Betty Lou Holland at the WBAI studios. It was never fully produced and it did not air as a radio segment. This is, therefore, the raw reading of the final passages of Chapter 82, Miss MacIntosh, My Darling.

A New York City native, Holland (1926-2011) was an actress best known for her work on Broadway. She performed in numerous comedies including Annie Get Your Gun and Goodbye, Mister Fancy. In the 1950’s she transitioned to the silver screen, where she starred in The Man in the Net and John Cromwell’s The Goddess.

In Chapter 82, part 1, Daisy Alden, began reading the conclusion of Miss MacIntosh, My Darling, at which point, Vera Cartwheel was contemplating the loss of her mother and the Opium Paradise, a vanquished utopia. In these last few pages of the novel, read by Betty Lou Holland, Vera makes mention of her future lover– a deaf man with a musical voice. The book ends with Vera recalling Esther Longtree as one who might be the mother of us all, Mr. Spitzer an occupant of an invisible world, and Miss MacIntosh, the center of an expanding universe.

 © copyright Charles Ruas 2023