CRAVEN, Margaret

Born 13 March 1901, Helena, Montana; died July 1980

Daughter of Arthur J. and Clara Kerr Craven

Author of numerous short stories and two novels, Margaret Craven grew up in the Puget Sound area. After graduating Phi Beta Kappa from Stanford in 1924, she worked for the San Jose Mercury Herald for three years, beginning as a secretary but swiftly establishing herself as an editorial writer. She continued to write features for the paper after moving to San Francisco but discontinued this means of financial support two years later when her short stories began to sell.

The most significant factor in Craven's career was her almost total loss of eyesight from a bus accident when she was in her twenties. As a result, Craven limited her writing to short stories which could be written in her mind and then rapidly transferred to paper. Faced with the necessity of earning a living during the Depression and supporting her mother, Craven found a market for her short stories in the popular magazines of the period: Delineator, Collier's, Ladies' Home Companion, American Magazine. The Saturday Evening Post was her major avenue of publication for more than 22 years.

Just as hard work and personal sacrifice are most certainly elements in Craven's triumph over adversity, so too are her short stories and novels dominated by this theme. Characters are faced with difficulties which they determine to surmount: the struggle builds character and leads to success. Craven's numerous stories, published from 1930 to 1962, attest to the popularity of this theme throughout the years of economic depression, World War II and postwar adjustment.

Although Craven's stories sold, they were relegated to the "delightful little stories" category and largely ignored by serious critics. Inadvertently, Craven pointed to the major source of this dearth of critical attention when she commented that "a short story comes out exactly right, like a soufflé, or it falls flat on its face." Craven's stories are like soufflés, light and delectable, but rarely filling. Major characters, generally women, too often confront adversity and achieve success that is predictable and banal. If Craven's female characters are frequently professional women or young girls aspiring to this status, "true" success is identified with marriage to respectable, affluent, and preferably "self-made" men. If character is developed by working one's way through college, wisdom lies in the recognition that intelligence must be hidden and achievement curtailed for "true" success. As a character in "Pardon My Round Shoulders" advises about men, "you have to attract them first and show them how bright you are afterward. Or better yet, never show them how bright you are."

Craven's competence in her craft and her ability to write more than delightful little stories which reflect earlier cultural norms became evident with the publication of her first novel in 1973, I Heard the Owl Call My Name. When, in the 1960s, an eye operation improved her vision, she traveled to Kingcome, an Indian village in British Columbia. What Craven saw and heard is transformed, in the novel, into the insights of her protagonist, a young Anglican priest. Although the theme is familiar—the development of character through a courageous struggle with adversity—Craven transcends the banal with the choice of a male protagonist, sensitive use of Indian mythology, and lyrical descriptions of nature. The Christian Science Monitor described the novel, in double-digit printings, as "a shining parable…rare and memorable." In 1973 General Electric Theater dramatized the novel in a television production.

In her second novel, Walk Gently This Good Earth, published in 1977, Craven incorporates characters, incidents, and truisms from earlier short stories. Although the descriptions of the Puget Sound area and the Montana wilderness are beautifully written, characters are flat and homilies substitute for dialogue. In this work Craven's dismay over the disintegration of traditional values in the modern world has resulted in the celebration of traditional male-female roles and the virtue of hard work. Inspirational and didactic, the novel is marred by narrowness of scope.

Craven died in July of 1980, and in the following year a long-awaited compilation of her stories entitled The Home Front: Collected Stories by Margaret Craven (1981) became available.

Other Works:

Again Calls the Owl (1984).

Bibliography:

Robbins, M. L., A Literature Unit for I Heard the Owl Call My Name, by Margaret Craven (1994). Troy, A., Teacher Guide: I Heard the Owl Call My Name [by] Margaret Craven (1987).

Other reference:

Atlantic Monthly (April 1980). Booklist (May 1980). CSM (30 Jan. 1974, 28 Dec. 1977). LAT (25 May 1981). LJ (1 Jan. 1978). NYTBR (3 Feb. 1974). PW (10 Oct. 1977). San Diego Union (25 June 1978). Time (28 Jan. 1974). Wilson Library Bulletin (Feb. 1978).

—JOYCE FLINT