Father’s Arcane Daughter by E.L. Konigsburg, 1976.

Winston Carmichael lives a very sheltered life during the 1950s. His family is wealthy. They live in Pittsburgh, and he attends a good school, but much of his free time is also taken up trying to entertain his sister, Hilary, called Heidi. He particularly has to look after Heidi every week on Thursday, while his mother leaves to get her hair done. Heidi has some developmental disabilities and is hard of hearing, so Winston’s overprotective family is especially overprotective of her. Because of that and because of her frustrations with her own limitations, Heidi is spoiled and frequently acts out when she doesn’t get her way, making her a pain for Winston to help care for. Even servants have often quit over Heidi’s behavior. However, Heidi’s disabilities are only part of the reason why the children’s parents are overprotective. The other reason is the mysterious disappearance of Caroline, Winston and Heidi’s much-older half sister, from their father’s first marriage. Winston is aware that Caroline was kidnapped years before he was born and is now presumed dead, a traumatic incident in their family. Then, one day, a woman claiming to be Caroline comes to the house to see their father.

The story is actually told in the form of flashbacks as Winston recounts it to a woman, who is at first unnamed. Winston explains how he knew about Caroline’s disappearance and how he wanted to know more about this mysterious woman claiming to be Caroline, partly in the hopes of reducing the shadow that Caroline’s disappearance has cast on all of their lives. The children’s father tells them the story of how Caroline was kidnapped 17 years earlier on her way home from the exclusive college that she was attending in Philadelphia. The kidnappers demanded a large ransom in cash, and it took longer than they thought for Mr. Carmichael to assemble that amount of cash because rich people don’t have all of their money in cash and getting large amounts of cash attracts attention from the authorities. Then, the ransom drop went badly and turned into a shootout between the police and the kidnappers at the house where the kidnappers were hiding. At some point, the house caught fire (no one is quite sure what started the fire), and everyone inside the house was killed. At the time, they assumed that Caroline was one of the people who was killed in the fire, but Mr. Carmichael was never sure because the kidnappers had said something earlier about moving Caroline. He always hoped that maybe Caroline wasn’t in the house and somehow survived, but having heard nothing from her for years, it has seemed likely that she died. After Caroline’s presumed death, her despondent mother died of alcohol-related causes. Mr. Carmichael remarried, and he and his new wife had Winston and Heidi. Still, Mr. Carmichael always hoped that maybe Caroline was alive and he would find her one day.

Caroline’s sudden reappearance, although happy for her father, is strange, and Mrs. Carmichael is suspicious that this woman’s real purpose is to claim the inheritance that Caroline was supposed to inherit from her mother’s family. The deadline for claiming the inheritance is approaching, so the woman claiming to be Caroline could be an imposter who is just after the money. Winston studies his mother’s scrapbook, containing all the known details of Caroline’s life, and he comes to understand his father and his family a little better. Caroline becomes more of a real person in his mind, not just a shadowy figure from the past, but he’s still not sure if the woman claiming to be Caroline is the real Caroline.

“Caroline’s” story is that she was rescued from her kidnapping situation by one of the kidnappers, who apparently had a change of heart, but that she had a kind of identity crisis and a sudden realization that she didn’t know who she wanted to be or what she really wanted out of life. She changed her name to Martha Sedgewick, using information given to her about a dead woman by the kidnapper who released her, and went to Ethiopia. There, she taught English for a time and then worked as a nurse. She says that she found it a very liberating experience. Winston, who feels trapped in his stifling, sheltered life understands that feeling. Caroline said that she fell in love for a time but never married the man she loved because there was a war and he died.

Caroline says that when she finally returned to the United States, she found a job as a nurse at the nursing home where her Grandmother Adkins was living. Caroline says that, at first, she wanted to see her grandmother again and get her opinion about whether or not to reveal herself to the rest of the family. However, Grandmother Adkins was senile when she finally saw her, and Caroline merely acted at her caregiver. Mrs. Carmichael thinks this is suspicious and continually quizzes “Caroline” about old acquaintances, trying to catch her slipping up and revealing herself as an imposter. Surprisingly, “Caroline” never seems to slip, and Winston finds himself becoming fond of her. Caroline has had a wide experience of life and is very well read, and she is a very interesting person to talk to. Winston blossoms intellectually under her influence.

I particularly liked the part where Winston realizes that many of his relatives have given him books to read as presents that they have never read themselves. They like to give him books that have a reputation for being “good” books, and it seems like the proper thing to do and something that will enhance their own reputations, but they never actually read the books themselves and can’t talk about them. Caroline hasn’t read all the books that have been deemed “good”, the kind that people read in order to become educated or have a reputation for being educated. However, Winston can tell by talking to Caroline that she has done a great deal of general reading just because she has a curiosity and a desire to know things. She has become a much more knowledgeable person than the people who collect all the “right” sort of books just to have them and never even open them. Many people in the Carmichael family are largely about appearance, but Caroline has substance.

However, Caroline’s presence in the house makes things uncomfortable for the family, not only because of their doubts about her true identity, but because she challenges the life the family is living and the habits they take for granted. Even though some of those habits have been making life uncomfortable for them, the changes that Caroline subtly begins to make also make them uncomfortable by bringing them out of their shells and forcing them to confront things that they have been trying not to confront. For example, Heidi is never scolded for bad habits like snatching things from others’ plates at dinner because she is young and has disabilities. Caroline doesn’t make those allowances, freely telling the family that she doesn’t like it.

Eventually, Caroline’s father is satisfied that she is his daughter and grants her the Adkins’ inheritance, although at his wife’s insistence, there is a proviso that the fortune will revert to the Carmichaels if any evidence surfaces in the future that Caroline isn’t the real Caroline. Caroline accepts those terms, but a battle of of personalities and wills still continues between her and Mrs. Carmichael over the children. Caroline insists that Winston be allowed more freedom, pointing out that Mrs. Carmichael has been using him as an unpaid babysitter while she goes to get her hair done every week. Caroline recognizes that Winston is young and needs to have some freedom and fun, and Mrs. Carmichael is pained that Caroline has caught on to the fact that her hair appointments are also a convenient excuse to get some freedom for herself.

At Christmas, Winston feels sorry for Heidi, watching other people at the family’s Christmas party, but not being able to understand what is being said around her, and knowing that she can’t understand them. On impulse, he gives her the book of poetry that he had intended to give Caroline. To his surprise, she really likes it. He knows that she can read, but he never thought of her as having the mental capacity to understand anything really complex because of her babyish behavior and fits when she doesn’t get her way on something. However, Heidi really does understand the poems and is able to read them to Caroline and tell her what they mean. At first, Winston refuses to believe it, jealous of the attention and coddling that Heidi has always received and not wanting to share Caroline and the intellectual discussions they have with Heidi.

Heidi continues to listen to their discussions and follow them as best she can. Gradually, in their company, Winston notices that her behavior begins to normalize and more of her true intelligence shows, although she reverts to her old habits around their mother. Hilary/Heidi has always been underestimated by her family because of her disabilities as well as being overprotected. Under Caroline’s influence, she learns that she is capable of more than anyone, including herself, believed possible.

Unfortunately, Mrs. Carmichael still distrusts Caroline, and in her determination to protect Heidi from her influence, will not allow her to spend time with her anymore. Caroline tells Winston that she is tired of all the Carmichaels’ pretenses, the way they try to ignore the real issues with Heidi, and she gives him an envelope, which she says will provide Winston with all the evidence he needs to decide whether she’s the real Caroline or not. Winston has to decide which is more important to him, learning whether the Caroline he knows (or thinks he does) is a pretense or accepting the realities of his family’s problems and the help Caroline can offer in learning to deal with them.

There is also a movie version of the book called Caroline? I saw the movie before I read the book, but I’ll explain the difference between the two below because it involves some spoilers.

The book is available to borrow and read for free online through Internet Archive.

Themes, Spoilers, and My Opinions

The everyone in the story, even the children, speak in a very educated and deep-thinking way, which I found interesting. At first, I thought that the children, especially Winston, should speak a little more colloquially, but then, I decided that it’s really right for him to speak in a more erudite way because of the school he attends and because much of the story emphasizes that he has been very sheltered and largely cut off from forming the sort of childhood friendships that children his age have, so he would probably use much less slang than most kids his age.

During the story, Winston is in the habit of thinking of Heidi by insulting terms, like “troglodyte”, because she is strange and awkward and her weird habits and temperamental fits cause problems for him, like preventing him from bringing friends to the house. At a couple of points, he thinks of her as a “golliwog”, which is an insulting racial term, based on a style of old dolls that look like black-faced minstrels, and later, even Heidi describes herself that way. (The term was actually coined in an old children’s book, where one of these dolls comes to life with some other toys. The doll character was actually a nice character, but since the dolls are considered ugly, its meaning has become an insult.) Winston doesn’t mean that in the racial sense here. He’s trying to convey that Heidi has an awkward, abnormal appearance.

As Winston opens up to Caroline, he finally admits to her that he knows that Heidi is “damaged”, not “special.” In other words, he understands that Heidi has disabilities and that she has been deliberately spoiled by their mother who wants to protect her from having to deal with them. Their mother herself has trouble facing the realities of Heidi’s disabilities and is actually ashamed of her daughter for not being normal, so she tries to ignore them, covering them up with cuteness, pretty dresses, presents, and indulgence. Heidi’s babyish behavior early in the story is not because her mind is infantile, but because of the coddling and overprotection she has received and poor socialization, and also because her family is afraid to face the difficulties that lie ahead for her because of her condition and underrates her capacity to do what other children can do and learn what they learn. It’s true that Heidi has some physical disabilities from birth, and she needs a hearing aid to help her hear (she reads lips up until the point that Caroline insists on her getting a hearing aid) and braces to help correct the way she walks, but her mind is excellent. Through Caroline’s attempts to help her, Heidi herself comes to realize how limited her life has been and the potential she has to expand it if she gets the help she really needs to learn how, and she eventually stands up to insist on what she wants for herself, asking her brother to kidnap her and take her to Caroline to get the help she needs and wants. Caroline acknowledges to Heidi, without being ashamed of her or trying to hide the truth, that she is not “normal” and never will be completely normal, but tells her that if she’s willing to work at it, she can realize her true potential in life, and ultimately, that’s what Heidi wants.

The movie followed the themes of the book very well, showing the effect that Caroline has on the lives of the Carmichaels, helping Hilary/Heidi to realize her true potential, helping her parents to realize what she is capable of and what she needs to make the best use of her real talents, and helping Winston to find his own sense of independence. There are some differences. In the movie, for example, Caroline wasn’t kidnapped. Supposedly, she was killed in a plane crash, although her body was never positively identified, and there was some doubt in her family about whether or not she got on the plane. In the movie, Caroline gives a similar story about feeling the need to go out and find herself, but I think she says that she became a nurse in India, not Ethiopia. (It’s been a while since I’ve seen the movie.)

One thing I am grateful for is that both the book and the movie do give a definite answer to the question of whether “Caroline” is the real Caroline or not. I’m often frustrated with movies and stories that leave loose ends like that, like Disney’s Candleshoe, where they never completely establish whether Casey/Margaret is really Margaret.

When Hilary/Heidi decides that she wants the help of Caroline and a friend of hers, who is a doctor, she asks Winston not to open the envelope. Winston keeps it sealed for years, but Hilary (who long since dropped her childhood nickname) is the women he’s talking to when he’s telling the story from his perspective, and at the end, they decide to open the envelope together and find out the truth.

Do you want to know the truth about Caroline?

The Real Spoilers

So, is Caroline actually Caroline, the same Caroline who was kidnapped and evidently killed years before? No, actually she’s not. She really is Martha Sedgewick, the identity that she supposedly took when she said that she was going off to find herself in Ethiopia. However, she is not posing as Caroline for the sake of the inheritance; she’s doing it for the sake of the family and the children. Grandmother Adkins put her up to it.

Martha really was a nurse in the nursing home where Grandmother Adkins lived before her death. She had lived in Ethiopia with her parents, who had died, and so had the man she loved, as she had said before. She had returned to the United States, alone, lonely, and depressed, before getting a job at the nursing home. Grandmother Adkins noticed her striking resemblance to Caroline, and in her confused stated of mind, sometimes thought that she was Caroline. She talked to Martha about the family all the time, which is how she knew all the right details for playing the part of Caroline. Grandmother Adkins knew that if Caroline never returned to claim her inheritance from her mother, that money would pass to Mr. Carmichael, and by extension to his new wife, whom Grandmother Adkins detested. Toward the end of her life, Grandmother Adkins urges Martha to go claim the Adkins inheritance as Caroline – revealing that, in spite of her supposed senility, she has been deliberately coaching Martha to be Caroline for that purpose. Martha decides to go through with the pretense, not because it was Grandmother Adkins’ dying wish or because she really wanted the money, but because she saw Mr. Carmichael at the funeral and was touched by how sad and lonely he looked. Martha didn’t have a family, so she decided to give Mr. Carmichael his daughter back.

In the end, she actually developed romantic feelings for Mr. Carmichael, but she could never admit to them because of their established relationship as father and daughter. Mr. Carmichael might have felt the same way, but he also couldn’t admit to those feelings without destroying the pretense that Martha was his daughter and admitting that Caroline was really dead. Martha came to love the children, and since she realized that they would never be her stepchildren, she did her best to be their big sister.

Miss Trollope, Caroline’s old headmistress, figures out the truth, and “Caroline” openly discusses the situation with her, including her desire to return to college and learn to educate children with disabilities, like Hilary. The real Caroline’s grades were never good enough to attend a university, but Miss Trollope approves of what “Caroline” wants to do and the good she is doing for the Carmichael children, so she does nothing to reveal the pretense or hinder Caroline’s education. However, Miss Trollope later admitted the truth to Hilary when she pressed her for answers.

The reason why Hilary and Winston are discussing this situation and telling the story in the book is that “Caroline” has just died. Hilary is now a business executive, and Winston is a writer. Hilary is a decisive person as well as intelligent, and she decides to put the papers proving Martha/Caroline’s true identity in her coffin, under her head, to be buried with her. Winston says that Hilary is mysterious and arcane, providing the title of the book. Caroline’s life was hidden and arcane, but Hilary’s true depths are also hidden and arcane because of the person she is.