"The One True Thing in My Life": Mother-Son Relations in the Art and Life of Emily Coleman

In 1925, following the birth of her only child Johnny, aspiring writer Emily Holmes Coleman developed toxic exhaustive psychosis, which led to her being institutionalized in the Rochester State Hospital for two months. Upon recovery, she translated the trauma of labor into her autobiographical novel The Shutter of Snow (1930). After moving to Paris in 1926, Coleman hired the Russian émigré Madame Donn, who was married with two children, to be her son's governess, and within a year had struck a deal that would shatter familial expectation and design: in exchange for financial assistance, the Donns agreed to have Johnny live with them full-time. Emily's marriage to Deak Coleman was basically over (they divorced in 1932). Deak had no interest in raising his son, and Emily most wanted to pursue a life of art and self-expression on a wholly self-absorbed plane. To this end, she became a sometime single mother who visited with her son occasionally while she was in Paris, or had him shipped over for holidays when she moved to London. I will explore the relationship between Coleman and her son through modernist and feminist perspectives. I will also examine how The Shutter of Snow gives us insight into her experiences with, and attitudes towards, mothering. In addition, I will analyze in detail the many entries in her diary devoted to her son, which reveal the plethora of ways in which their relationship was sustained over the years.