Narrated by Val Cole

Vivian Maier is unattractive, too tall, has big feet and a strange accent. She is often unable to read social situations. She struggles to keep a job as a nanny, but finally she has some success working for a family on Riverside Drive in Manhattan, taking care of a little girl named Joan McMillan. She begins to like and trust Joan, and for the first time in her life, she finds a real connection. Vivian is taking pictures in the city of New York which gives her a growing sense of control over her life and a new way of seeing.

When she is asked to go on a family trip to Los Angeles with Mrs. McMillan, Joan and her cousin Natalie, she decides to accept the invitation as an opportunity to expand her portfolio. They will travel across America, to the American plains, the wild west, up to Vancouver, Canada, and down the California coast. As she learns more about the McMillan family, she has flashbacks about her own unstable family life and worries about the legacy of mental illness. The challenges of travelling with her employer bring Vivian’s conflicts to a head. She feels the need to choose which version of herself she really wants. Artist or nanny? Abandoning Joan and her family at a hotel in L.A., she disappears from the McMillan’s lives forever. With the help of money from her savings, Vivian goes back to New York and takes the best pictures of her life. It’s 1953 and she’s twenty-eight years old.

Get to know the writer:

What is your novel about?

Vivian Maier Framed is a story of one woman's struggle to become an artist in 1950's America where everything was against her. This nanny/artist who became famous in 2009, after her death, when her 160,000 photographs were discovered in a storage facility. Some called her a hoax. Others called one of the most important photographers of the century. She was an elusive and sometimes unsympathetic character whose behaviour was questionable, but this novel explores who she might have been in her very private world.

2. What genres would you say this story is in?

Literary fiction. The first chapter has been published online by The Write Launch Literary Journal and it was shortlisted for the Plaza Literary Chapters contest both in 2024.

3. Do you have an all-time favorite novel?

A Soldier of the Great War by Mark Helprin

4. What motivated you to write this story?

I've been reading about Vivian Maier with great interest since 2009 and thought about how we have framed her story in our time in such a way that tells us a lot about our own anxieties about the fame of a woman who didn't have the resources to become famous in her time. I identify with her struggle to be a woman artist in a male dominated world and marvel at how easily she is dismissed and even erased by some who refuse to believe she could achieve greatness on her own. They myths that people still have about artists and madness, and women and madness make these stories more about us than about the person. This story has many layers and complexities to it that interest me and it was a great pleasure to write.

5. What influenced you to enter your story to get performed?

When I came across this platform and saw that you were performing novel chapters, I thought it was a great idea and really enjoyed hearing it performed. It adds a new performative aspect to the writing and I hope it attracts readers to want to hear more from Vivian Maier.