Miss Macintosh, My Darling: Chapter 2, The Opium Lady, Marian Seldes

Marian Seldes reads Chapter 2 of Miss MacIntosh, My Darling by Marguerite Young. Seldes is a celebrated stage, film, radio and television actress whose career spanned over six decades, and whose talents elected her to the American Theatre Hall of Fame in 1995 and awarded her the Tony Lifetime Achievement Award in 2010. Often compared to James Joyce’s Finnegans Wake, Young's novel resonates with unique and poignant observations of American culture, in an epic and surrealist poetic prose. It took the under-recognized, enigmatic and iconoclastic author eighteen years of work to complete this dense, two volume novel.

NOTE: This program is in two parts, each about an hour in length. Listeners can use the fast forward?advance button in the media player to jump from one part to the other.

In 1976-77, Charles Ruas produced a series of WBAI radio programs focused on literature and radio performance, called The Reading Experiment. As part of this series, Miss MacIntosh, My Darling was read over a year-long period by Marguerite Young’s contemporaries from the New York City literature, music, and theater communities. All readings are underscored with soundscapes and music by artist Rob Wynne.

This program has been restored by The Clocktower Radio; with the assistance of Charles Ruas; and by agreement with The Yale Beinecke Library, home to the Marguerite Young Papers. Special thanks to Dr. Contance Eichenlaub for her passion and generosity.

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