Miss MacIntosh My Darling: Chapter 73, About Esther Longtree, Tessa Saipan Kaner

Tessa Saipan Kaner reads from Chapter 73 “About Esther Longtree” of Miss MacIntosh, My Darling by Marguerite Young. Saipan Kaner was a novelist, actress, and one of the first to read for this series.

The waitress, Esther Longtree, was perpetually pregnant- and not from the same partner. Indeed, her many mates were as eccentric as her private habituation. Joe Goldberg was among them. This chapter follows his obsession with Esther and the night that they shared in a graveyard. The burial yard foreshadows Esther’s many miscarriages and Goldberg’s impending death.

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.

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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