The 20th Plane is a novel, published in 1919, to huge success. It’s all about the other “plane” of existence, where those we love who have died, wait for us to pass over. L.M. Montgomery, while a strict Presbyterian herself, had great curiosity about “what comes after”, and lost many people she loved. She believed greatly that they still hovered about her. Anyway, here’s what she has to say about this long-forgotten book.
“I was much disappointed in it. It was absolute poppycock — utterly unconvincing. And I was so ready to be convinced, for since Frede died, I would give anything if I could only be convinced that she still exists and that there might be a faint hope of getting some communication from her, even by the medium or the ouija board. But my intellect absolutely refused any credence to the so-called ‘revelations’…. There was a certain enjoyment in the book, though, because it is really exquisitely funny — all the funnier because it is so deadly serious. The ‘pink twilight’ and the ‘orange sun’ of the 20th Plane don’t appeal to me, and the ‘bill of Fare’ which the departed eat is farcical – ‘synthetic beef tea’ and ‘juice of a rice product’. How Frede would have howled. There isn’t a single non-famous spirit in Dr. Watson’s calling list, except his mother … There don’t seem to be any grocers or butchers or carpenters on the 20th Plane.”
