THE LIGHT OF LUNA PARK Book Club Kit

A CONVERSATION WITH

ADDISON ARMSTRONG One might be surprised to hear that you wrote The Light of Luna Park at twenty-two years of age. What inspired you to write this emotionally nuanced novel?

I wrote the type of book I’ve always read. The first novel I remember reading was Little Women by Louisa May Alcott in first grade, and I suppose I’ve read about women and the past ever since! I love stories about history, women, family secrets, complicated relationships, and moral gray areas. So I may not have as much life experience as some other authors, but I’ve lived it all vicariously!

The Light of Luna Park is rooted in the real history of medicine behind the “incubator babies” of Coney Island. How did you perform the research required for this story? Was there any information that surprised you?

My research started when I was reading a completely unrelated history piece. As I scrolled through the article, a clickbait-style heading popped up as my next suggested read . . . and even as I rolled my eyes at the unlikelihood of it being legitimate—baby incubators at an amusement park?—I found myself clicking the link. Obviously, I was immediately hooked. I scrambled to read everything I could on Dr. Couney’s incubators, nonfiction books and primary sources like newspapers, photographs, and interview transcripts. I even got to visit Bellevue Hospital, which has a historical gallery that displays a hospital timeline, an old ambulance, and a centuries-old medical kit.

As to what I found surprising? Everything! I couldn’t believe that people paid to see babies struggling to survive, for one thing, and so it blew my mind that the shows even existed at all.

But as surprising as the existence of Couney’s incubator wards was the fact that some parents turned them down. Several interviews with living survivors of the incubator wards report that their mothers were offered spots only after mothers of babies born before them refused the offer. Notably, only the babies who did go to Coney Island (or Atlantic City) are still around to remember.

Finally, I was shocked by the juxtaposition between Couney’s exhibits and the eugenics-related displays proliferating at the same time and place. In every way, the incubator wards were just so incongruous to the

setting in which they found themselves. They were an oasis of calm in the frenzy of an amusement park, a bastion of hope and acceptance in a world that had the rest of the scientific field calling for selective breeding and sterilization.

How did you come to craft the two heroines—Althea and Stella? Are they based on real people, or were they inspired by anyone in particular?

Neither was inspired by anyone in particular, though of course I can’t write about Althea as a mother without thinking of my own mom. Both characters have elements of myself in them—from Althea’s single-mindedness, which often translates as standoffishness or anti-socialness (oops) to Stella’s career as a teacher. In some ways, Stella also has elements of my sister Ryan in her; they’re both fiercely loyal and will fight with every last breath for those they love.

What is your favorite scene in the novel, and why?

This is a hard one, because I’ve rewritten and reread every scene so many times that I can no longer read a single sentence without remembering all the versions of it that have come and gone. So while there’s no one scene that sticks out to me, I do love those depicting Stella and her students. One of my favorite moments is when Robby smears his pureed food all over Stella’s face—it makes me laugh, because I’ve been on the receiving end of the same thing!

I also like the scenes with Althea and Charlie, because I think their intensity is so well-matched. The way Althea handles the doctors at the AMA meeting leaves me feeling smug, too.

This story examines the complicated ties of motherhood and the lengths a mother will go to protect her daughter. What drew you to portray this relationship and the choices Althea makes?

I’m lucky. My mom and dad are my foundation; I don’t know who I’d be without them. They love me unconditionally, and I know that, like Althea, they would sacrifice everything for me. I also know that if I were to find out they weren’t really “mine” biologically, none of that would change. What matters isn’t the blood we share but the bond we share.

I’ve also spent years working with children myself—

teaching, tutoring, nannying, you name it. I’m not yet a mother, but still I wouldn’t hesitate to sacrifice for the kids I’ve known.

Of course, let me put on the record that I would not, like Althea, kidnap them!

If Stella’s timeline was set in present day, how do you think the school would have handled her professional situation? Do you think that would have changed the path her story takes?

Stella would definitely have the opportunity today to take legal action against the school if they tried to use undue physical restraint against the students. That being said, Stella’s situation is not as distantly past as it may seem. The Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (originally the Education for All Handicapped Children Act) wasn’t passed until 1975, and the Americans with Disabilities Act came fifteen years later. Even today there is more to be done.

Of course, I don’t mean to be dire! Many of Stella’s kids today would be in inclusive classrooms, use Augmentative and Alternative Communication (AAC) devices to communicate, self-propel their wheelchairs, and take advantage of a host of other resources.

Unlike in 1950, schools are required to provide a free and appropriate education in the least restrictive environment to all students with (and without) special needs.

As for how this would affect Stella . . . I can imagine her suing the school over their abuses and getting fired as a result. I think she still would have ended up in New York City chasing down the ghost of her mother, because she would have needed Althea’s strength and guidance just as much in this new scenario. Still, she would wonder whether she was doing the right thing for her kids; still, she would need to fill her grief and time away from work with meaning.

Why did you choose to include Jack’s PTSD from World War II in the story? What do you think this adds to the novel?

A third of the adult male population of the United States in the 1940s served in World War II, plus hundreds of thousands of American women. But despite the fact that virtually no one came out of the war unscarred, there was very little understanding of PTSD (which wasn’t used as a term until the 1970s or a diagnosis until 1980). While the trauma of war tormented veterans, and by extension their loved ones, there was little done to effectively combat the problem. The effects were so far-reaching that I felt I couldn’t write a story that took place in 1950 without considering them.

Additionally, I saw a clear link between the eugenics movement in Althea’s era and the war in Stella’s. Just as Althea’s actions led to Stella’s circumstances, the eugenics movement in the 1920s laid the groundwork for Hitler’s atrocities during World War II and their aftermath.

I think Jack’s struggles are also necessary for Stella. She’s a fighter, and I wanted her to go from fighting against her husband to fighting alongside her husband. For them to have the strong marriage I wanted, they had to be right for each other—but there had to be something in the way. For Stella, it was grief. For Jack, it was the trauma of war.

s “I WANT READERS TO SEE HOW, ON EVERY LEVEL AND IN ANY CIRCUMSTANCE, A PERSON HAS THE CAPACITY TO LOVE AND BE LOVED.”

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What do you hope readers will take away from The Light of Luna Park ?

I hope readers come away with a sense of how powerful unconditional love is. More than that, I hope they see that every human being is deserving of it. There are people in the novel (and in our history and even our present) who try to claim that some people aren’t strong enough, smart enough, able enough, white enough, healthy enough—but I want readers to see how, on every level and in any circumstance, a person has the capacity to love and be loved.

Without giving anything away, did you always know how the story would end?

I always knew how things would end for Althea, Stella, and the others, but I wrote the last chapter (Althea’s) at the suggestion of my editor. My mom had actually proposed the same thing after reading the manuscript months earlier, but I’d (foolishly) ignored her! I knew what would happen in that chapter, as I’d already alluded to it in the doctor’s letter to Stella, but I didn’t know I was going to include the scene itself in the novel.

What’s next for you?

I’m finishing my master’s in Reading Education at Vanderbilt University and hope to stay in Nashville to teach elementary school when I graduate. In the meantime, I’m continuing my writing! I don’t think I could stop if I tried. My upcoming projects, like The Light of Luna Park, take little-known historical eras or events and explore the choices (or lack thereof ) women were given within them.

DISCUSSION QUESTIONS 1. What did you think of how Stella’s grief over her mother’s passing was portrayed in the novel?

If you’ve experienced grief, did you feel Stella’s emotions mirrored yours, or were they different?

2. What were your feelings toward Stella’s husband, Jack, in the beginning of the novel?

What about at the end? Do you feel he is a good husband?

3. In Chapter 7, when Althea views one of the circus acts at Coney Island featuring children and adults with deformities, she tells a woman, “The whole thing feels exploitative.”

The woman counters this by saying, “Way I see things, the circus is a haven for people like that.”

Discuss these differing opinions and your own in relation to this conversation.

4. Which character was your favorite, and why?

5. The Light of Luna Park calls into question how far someone would go to save another. Do you think Althea ultimately made the right decision for Stella? For herself? Why or why not?

6. How do you think Althea and Stella are similar? How are they different?

7. Much of the information regarding Luna Park and Dr. Couney—the “Incubator Doctor”—is rooted in fact.

Which piece of information were you most surprised to learn?

8. Do you think Stella handled her professional dilemma well in the beginning of the novel? If you were in her place, how do you think you would have reacted?

9. How did you feel about Althea and Charlie’s relationship? Were you satisfied with how it ended up?

10. Do you think Dr. Couney’s lies or omissions were justified by his motivations?

A NOTE FROM

ADDISON ARMSTRONG “All the world loves a baby,” Martin Couney’s barkers called outside his turreted baby incubator ward on the bustling Luna Park midway at Coney Island. And if love is measured in oohs and aahs, then he was right. All the world did love a baby. But if love is measured in commitment to care, financial investment, and public messaging, the reality was that the world only loved certain babies.

When Dr. Martin Couney opened his first permanent baby incubator exhibit on Coney Island in 1903, the American eugenics movement was on the rise. In fact, the American Breeder’s Association was formed at the same time, and its Committee on Eugenics emerged three years later, in 1906. Luna Park itself held “Better Baby” contests that mimicked livestock contests; to judge the babies displayed, nurses and doctors would assess body measurements such as weight, height, and head and chest circumference as well as “mental capacity” and appearance. While the stated goal of such contests was to improve infant health, the standards were inextricably linked to eugenicist attitudes. Dr. Ada Schweit­z er, who organized the Better Baby Contests for the Indiana State Board of Health, explained that “you cannot make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear, neither can we make a citizen out of an idiot or any person who is not well born.”

Like other leading eugenicists, she believed not only in ranking babies but in limiting marriage and procreation for those deemed “unfit” to reproduce. In many states, this translated into forced sterilization.

Doctors’ attitudes toward premature babies reflected these wider attitudes. Preemies were seen as “weaklings” who could not and even should not survive; in 1901, the Boston Medical and Surgical Journal asked whether it was even “worthwhile” to try saving these babies and “polluting” the gene pool down the line. It was in this world that Couney dedicated his life to saving premature babies of all races, socioeconomic status, and religions.

Martin Couney was born Michael Cohen in Poland in 1869. By 1896, he was working under Dr. Pierre Budin exhibiting baby incubators at the Berlin World’s Fair.

From there, he took his incubators from place to place, stopping at the Trans-Mississippi Exposition in Nebraska, the Paris Exposition, and the Pan-American Exposition in New York. In 1903, he was invited to open a permanent ward at Luna Park on Coney Island. He

agreed, running the Luna Park ward until 1943, and also opened exhibits at Luna Park’s rival park Dreamland and at Atlantic City. The Dreamland ward opened in 1904 and lasted until a fire destroyed the park in 1911, though all six babies were rescued. The ward at Atlantic City opened in 1905 and lasted, like that at Luna Park, through 1943. During this time, Michael Cohen changed his name to Martin Couney, began claiming he was born in France, and alleged to have earned a medical degree in Germany. In all his decades at Coney Island and Atlantic City, no one questioned his credentials; it was discovered only after his death that Martin Couney had not formally studied medicine in Berlin or anywhere else. Dr. Couney was not a doctor after all.

Couney’s care, however, was cutting edge. His nurses brought the expertise he lacked, and his head nurse, Louise Recht, had been trained at the Maternity Hospital in Paris. Care centered around the incubators, which mimicked the temperature of the human body and supplied purified oxygen to the infants, but it consisted of much more. The nurses were able to feed babies who were unable to swallow using eye droppers and gavages through the nose; they also gave each baby one drop of whiskey a day. The milk itself came from wet nurses employed at the premises, who were not permitted to drink so much as a soda, or from the baby’s mothers themselves. Babies also received daily baths and alcohol rubbings, and they were frequently held, kissed, and cuddled by the nurses.

Of course, Couney was a showman. The parents of the babies he served never had to pay a cent, and Couney covered the exorbitant costs of running his wards through tourist admission fees. At Luna Park, the admission began at ten cents in 1903, rose to twenty-five cents at the peak of the park’s popularity, and had fallen to twenty cents by 1943. He and his nurses employed several tricks to keep people coming.

They dressed babies in overlarge clothes to make babies look even smaller in comparison to the clothes, and the nurses would perform a “ring trick” in which they slid an engagement ring around a baby’s entire wrist.

Couney hosted “graduations” and reunions for his babies and was well-covered in the newspapers of the day.

Not all coverage, however, was positive. In 1903, the New York Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children called Couney’s ward a “baby farm,” but he was

© RYAN ARMSTRONG 2021

investigated and cleared by the Coney Island courts. And no wonder—he claimed an 87.5 p ­ ercent success rate in saving babies that had nearly a 100 percent mortality rate in hospitals at the time.

Still, many parents refused to send their children to Couney. After all, the other exhibits at Luna Park included a four-legged woman, sword swallowers, strippers, microcephalic twins presented as the missing link, and exotic dancers— none of which were viewed favorably by society at the time. In 1937, the Brooklyn Jewish Hospital reached out to Dr. Couney, reporting that two sets of premature twins had been born the same night. Couney had only one incubator available and told the hospital to offer it to the twins who had been born first. But their mother turned down the offer, saying that “she didn’t want her babies to be part of a freak show.” Both of her twins died, but the other two—whose mother eagerly took the spot after the first declined—lived to have “nine children and thirteen grandchildren between them.”

The majority of Couney’s babies thrived the same way. In fact, many had better health outcomes than preemies in hospitals would in later decades. While hospital-treated premature babies in the 1950s received too much oxygen and often suffered blindness due to the ensuing retrolental fibroplasia, none of Couney’s babies experienced the same. And he saved even the tiniest of babies; in 1932, he reported his smallest surviving baby as having come in at 740 grams, or 1.6 pounds.

By 1939, Couney’s success in saving an alleged 6,500 children had begun to sway the medical establishment. Cornell University’s New York Hospital opened a training and research center for premature infants that year, though many who could not afford the center’s care continued to go to Couney. Saving these infants was such a remarkable feat that many tourists believed Couney’s babies were dolls rather than living humans.

Living they were, however, and living is Martin Couney’s legacy today. An estimated 6,500 children were saved by his incubators; millions more have been saved since by the life-saving technology that he helped force into the mainstream.

ADDISON ARMSTRONG graduated

from Vanderbilt University in 2020 with degrees in Elementary Education and Language and Literacy Studies and received her master’s degree in Reading Education in 2021.

The Light of Luna Park is her first novel.

She lives in Nashville, Tennessee.

ADDISON.ARMSTRONG.AUTHOR ADDISONARMSTRO7