Turning Your Obsession Into A Book

By L.L. Kirchner

As you may’ve guessed from the title, Maria Teresa Hart’s DOLL (Bloomsbury, November 2022) is about dolls. How did Hart—whom I knew to be a writer of sharp, witty essays about life and travel—come to write such a thing? And get it published?

Hart’s book was part of Bloomsbury’s series Object Lessons, online essays and books that delve deeply into the stories behind everyday objects. Hart describes the union as “a dream come true.”

“I went in un-agented,” she says. “And I didn’t need a platform.”

Translation: she didn’t need to devote thousands of hours to whipping up enthusiasm among potential readers. Instead, Hart tapped into the series’ existing audience, initially by pitching essays to the generic email she found online. “One of the things I found refreshing [about writing Object Lessons essays] was that they didn’t have to be pegged to anything timely.” Her first piece was about hair dryers, her second about bidets. “When I finished those essays, I was done. They were not books.”

But Hart still wanted to write a full-length work that would uncover some “hidden history of femininity.” Obvious as the topic of dolls might seem in retrospect, Hart says there was no “aha moment.” She’d been studying dolls since her first visit to the Smithsonian at eight, where the displays conveyed something undeniable—dolls had real value. “I started checking books out of the library and scanning classified ads for dolls to buy.”

I wondered if that was a challenging marketplace for a young Latina to enter, but Hart didn’t find it to be. “Any hobbies where you need money at the entry level is going to have a barrier of class to it. But even with ten bucks you can buy a doll at Walmart. And some of the things that are considered disposable and cheap are the things that become rarefied later. Like popular freebies. They become incredible collector’s items.”

Naturally, I had to ask her about Barbie.

“Barbie is a popular punching bag for most feminists. She has these oppressive beauty standards that I can’t uphold. But my thinking on Barbie has evolved.”

Hart finds something to celebrate in the fact that Barbie can exemplify hyper-femininity. To downplay that quality, Hart suggests, is to treat femininity as insignificant. “I’ll be first in line for tickets to the Barbie movie, because I believe in celebrating femininity, in taking it seriously and finding joy in it.”

In her book, dolls are introduced by type rather than chronology — Barbies, porcelain dolls, American Girl dolls, celebrity dolls, and digital dolls, or avatars. What follows are  the “hidden histories.” For instance, did you know that Mattel’s founder Ruth Handler was inspired by the 1950s German novelty doll Bild-Lilli, “a scrappy escort using her figure and her fast wit to get by”?

Each type of doll is introduced with a short essay and accompanied by an illustration to create a diorama. Hart says that in this way, “the book became two objects, both a book and a paper doll.” The “Play Dates”, as Hart calls these introductions, describe the doll’s world and imagines their context. In Play Date #4, which introduces the section How to Live Forever: The Celebrity Doll, Hart writes, “Not to worry, our lady isn’t going to work in some factory, school, or secretarial pool. We’re playing, not punching the clock. Her job has to be fun—the most fun imaginable. A job that requires oodles of beautiful gowns, a full calendar of grand events, and international attention.”

“What toy companies try and convince us is that dolls have modern values,” Hart tells me. “But they don’t uphold today’s core values.” Given that the book was part of a series, I wondered if the Play Date concept was her own.

“The Play Dates idea came to me in the shower after the book was done. Thankfully, the editors encouraged me.” She laughs. “My editor’s note was ‘be more extra.’ And I was like, no problem.”

Hart’s passion for dolls shines through the pages, though she doesn’t shy away from critique. Of a visit to the American Girl Doll flagship store in Manhattan, Hart writes, “I see American Girl Doll solidifying its own unimpeachable sovereignty…. All I can hope is that as we build this history, we avoid constructing another Monticello—a monolith to white, individualistic values—and we knock a sledgehammer into the door frame, so it’s wide enough for all girls to enter.”

When it comes to mining your world for book ideas, mining your particular obsessions is a strong choice. Not only does it mean diving deeper into something you already care about, but that zeal conveys to the reader as well. Going into this book I had no interest in dolls. But page after page, I kept turning. Between the fascinating facts she uncovered about the women behind the industry and her observations about how dolls are emotional vectors—simultaneously objects of scorn and adoration—was revelatory and relatable. I can only hope my next book generates the same kind of enthusiasm.

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L.L. Kirchner is the author of the forthcoming memoir Blissful Thinking: A Memoir of Overcoming the Wellness Revolution (Motina Books, 9/23). She’s writing a historical fiction novel about her current obsession, Florida Girls, A Novel. More at her website.