Belva Plain
Belva Plain was an influential American author, born on October 9, 1919, in New York City, who became renowned for her compelling storytelling, selling nearly thirty million books over her career. She earned a B.A. in history from Barnard College and was deeply influenced by her passion for history and the stories of ordinary people. After marrying ophthalmologist Irving Plain and raising three children in New Jersey, she began her writing journey with short stories, later transitioning to novels. Her breakthrough came with "Evergreen" in 1978, which featured a resilient Jewish immigrant maid and became an international bestseller, spawning a television miniseries.
Plain's works are characterized by vivid, passionate female protagonists and intricate explorations of love and human relationships across various historical contexts. Despite facing criticism for some aspects of her writing, she maintained a close bond with her readers, who appreciated her engaging plots and moral lessons. Her storytelling style, reminiscent of classic 19th-century novels, focuses on love, friendship, and the complexities of human existence, often affirming the goodness of humanity amidst life's challenges. Throughout her prolific career, Belva Plain became a significant figure in the realm of domestic fiction, leaving a lasting impact on readers and the literary landscape.
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Subject Terms
Belva Plain
Author
- Born: October 9, 1915
- Birthplace: New York, New York
- Died: October 12, 2010
- Place of death: Short Hills, New Jersey
Biography
Despite selling close to thirty million books known for their enthralling story lines, Belva Plain often acknowledged the pedestrian quality of her own life. Born October 9, 1919, in New York City, she was a voracious reader, drawn to history and specifically the stories of ordinary people caught up in tumultuous times (she would earn a B.A. in history at Barnard College). She was married to an ophthalmologist, Irving Plain, for more than 40 years until his death in 1982; she raised three children in comfortable suburbia in New Jersey, where she lived for more than fifty years.
Drawing on her own love of the human side of history and her upbringing exposed to the rich tradition of Jewish storytelling, Plain wrote short stories when she was raising her children, with her first story published in Cosmopolitan when she was twenty-five years old. For several years, she found success writing formula domestic fiction for women’s magazines, producing moral tales of homebound women who must manage marriage and children. By the late 1950’s, however, Plain no longer found such fiction rewarding and turned to the responsibilities of raising her children.
By the early 1970’s, however, she yearned to return to storytelling. Writing in longhand at the kitchen table, she told the story of a resilient Jewish immigrant maid in early twentieth century New York who falls in love with her boss’s son. The tale bore what would become the signature mark of Plain’s fiction: the vivid, passionate women characters, the interest in anatomizing star-crossed love, the meticulous recreation of exotic times and locales, the gift for the cinematic scene and the innate sense of suspense, and the clear movement toward a happy ending and affirmation of a moral lesson. The result, Evergreen (1978), became an international best- seller and the basis for a successful television miniseries.
Thus began a prolific career that would endure for a quarter of a century. Plain published a series of books that ranged over a variety of places and historic times and examined the difficult commitment of love (particularly within generations of a family), the harsh intrusion of chance, the steadying certainty of the heart, and the affirmation of the benign goodness of humanity. Although fascinated by love, Plain never indulged the sexual license typical of her literary era. Romance, she argued, was more erotic because it suggested.
Despite critical carping accusing her of two-dimensional characters, wooden dialogue, and movie-of-the-week story lines, Plain enjoyed enormous sales, her readers (for whom she felt unabashed closeness) more like fans who relished her generous plots and her unadorned style. Drawing on her own love of classic nineteenth century novels (she often cited Charles Dickens and Anthony Trollope as influences), Plain’s romances hark back to a concept of the novel as a reflection of the hopes and sorrows of people whose lives are complicated by the need for others and the inevitable intrusion of death, novels that entertain and gently enlighten by affirming the viability of love, respect, friendship, and dignity.