When one thinks of Maria von Trapp, an image of Julie Andrews spinning atop a plateau with the Alps in the background (as per the book’s cover), or successfully matching wits with Christopher Plummer in The Sound of Music may well come to mind. Michelle Moran’s Maria shows that there was a lot more going on under the hood of the postulant who became the world’s most iconic stepmother. 

When Maria learns that Rogers and Hammerstein are planning on adapting a movie of her life – which is loosely based on her memoir — into a musical, she is pleased – and then disappointed to read the script and note how much of her life has been altered to make the play palatable to a post World War II audience. Maria’s hesitancy about marrying Georg von Trapp is rewritten into an epic love story, as is her initially one-sided love; the princess and countess whom Georg initially wanted to marry are merged into a single countess; and her childhood – filled with physical abuse from a foster uncle after the tragic deaths of her mother and father – is cleaned up. The von Trapps’ harrowing escape from the Nazis is transformed into a different sort of arduous, perilous climb. Franz Wasner, the priest sent to be the family’s private chaplain, who begins them on the road to professional singing careers, is left out altogether. Even one of the seven von Trapp children is transformed into a girl (Rupert becomes Liesl, of “I am Sixteen Going on Seventeen” fame); the three Maria had with Georg do not even appear in the musical. Seeing not enough of herself in this chirpy, syrupy fictional Maria, she requests a meeting with Oscar Hammerstein. Unfortunately he – distracted by the business of mounting the play and a recent stomach cancer diagnosis – is unavailable.

Enter Oscar’s secretary, Fran Connelly, who finds herself taking note of Maria’s complaints and listening to her life story. She learns about Maria’s past and present; about the priest who helped shape the family and the complexities of turning a family into a singing group that never stops touring – a choice that causes damage to several of the children. Fran must learn some hard lessons from Maria’s life and apply them to her own ambitions.

Maria von Trapp was no saint, no plaster angel, and wow, does Michelle Moran avoid backing down from that truth. Here, Maria’s discipline does not come in the form of folk songs and romps but in harsh punishments and forced lockstep conformity with expectations. And yet she deeply loves her huge adopted brood, in fact marries Georg because she thinks they will never get the love and care they need if she doesn’t leave the convent, and eventually falls for him. But naturally, she’s not all bad, and the book does a good job making her feel human and realistic.

There are a few problems with the pacing, and a whole lot of info-dumping takes place across the body of the novel to pack in as much of Maria’s life as Moran possibly can. I didn’t take to Fran as well as I took to Maria’s story – Fran is entirely fictional, and her ambitions and romantic pursuits aren’t especially entertaining. And Hammerstein gets a brief chapter that made me wish the book’s perspective had been split between himself and Maria.

And yet there’s something about Maria. It’s not a perfect novel, nor is it a bad one. Perhaps the best way to solve the problem of it is to read it.