The inner life of a cat

THE TRUTH ABOUT MAX, by Alice and Martin Provensen

Alice and Martin Provensen were Ginger and Fred of the American picture book: an extremely poised and stylish illustrator team who, in a collaboration spanning almost 40 years and over 40 children’s books (of which they also wrote and edited 19), enticed fans with their deadpan humor , widespread curiosity and mid-century modernist flair.

Both were born in Chicago and attended the University of California. And by the time they met in Los Angeles in 1943, they had both worked as journeymen in the burgeoning animation industry and were ready for a change that promised greater creative freedom. After the war and a move to New York (by which time they were married), the pair turned to book illustration, establishing themselves as mainstays of the phenomenally successful Golden Books list and moving on from there to subjects ranging from Greek mythology to classical ballet.

In 1951, they bought the ramshackle Dutchess County estate that became Maple Hill Farm, a storybook hideaway and the setting of several collaborations for which their farmyard served as the central casting. When not roaming the world for research or fun, the Provensens would log long hours at drawing tables in their converted barn, patiently developing the ideal approach for their project of the moment.

Martin cooked lunch, Alice cooked dinner; aside from that, the pair rarely revealed much about their division of labor. They “really were one performer,” Alice once explained.

‘The Truth About Max’, starring a big, cheeky cat, is a previously unpublished picture book discovered in 2019 in the form of a dummy, or preliminary version, among some papers kept by Alice’s agent George Nicholson, who died in 2015. Martin Provensen had died in 1987; Alice passed away in 2018.

Over the years, the pair had come to appreciate as individuals many of the animals that lived in their midst, and in a series of humorous sketchbook-style volumes, they had proven themselves as savvy naturalists. In “Our Animal Friends” (1974), the first of these books, they gave pride of place to the real Max by depicting him on the title page with burning bright eyes and a grin from ear to ear. The book they left behind was clearly intended to be the star they felt the crook of their farm deserved.

The Provensen’s love of animals, such as that of Beatrix Potter, was clearly unsentimental. In “The Truth About Max,” the truth they capture includes Max’s naughty jokes and his raw knack for survival: his unerring instinct for knowing who can be messed with on two or four legs and who can’t be crossed with.

The Max we meet is also a real hunter, with sleeping quarters that resemble a trophy room ‘full of squirrel tails’. This casual and shocking revelation is enough to make young readers feel like they’re being treated like adults—another Provensen hallmark.

The illustrations vary in degree of finish, with the occasional figure or face rendered only roughly and the background left vague for later. A publisher’s note states that the spidery fake naive italic used for the text is a repetition by skilled calligraphers of the artist’s own vicarious handlettering.

The unpolished bits tell a truth of their own, exposing traces of the uncomfortable, trial-and-error not-knowing in which creative work so often begins.

The Provensens were tireless explorers who rejected the obvious and felt most acute in unfamiliar territory. For example, who would have decided to make a book about the history of aviation, who else would have chosen to focus not on the daring Wright brothers, but on the relatively obscure but equally remarkable Louis Blériot? (The couple won the 1984 Caldecott Medal for that effort, titled “The Glorious Flight”.)

Max was another kindred spirit. His story ends on another distinctly mature note, this one hauntingly beautiful.

Every night we learn that Max, who is “tired” of the barnyard, “goes down the road / Into the fields. / You wouldn’t recognize him. / He looks like a tiger.”

What threshold has he crossed on his own? Perhaps the mysterious one that marks the limit of what one can know about another. ‘Now’, the Provensens write, while we can imagine the rest, Max’s ‘real life’ begins.

Leonard S. Marcus is the most recent author of “Pictured Worlds: Masterpieces of Children’s Book Art by 101 Essential Illustrators From Around the World.”