The only love affair Helen Keller is known to have had.

AI Overview

The novel about Helen Keller and Peter Fagen (Fagan) is Helen Keller in Love by Rosie Sultan. Published in 2013, the novel tells the story of the romantic, and ultimately clandestine, affair between Helen Keller and Peter Fagan, her private secretary and a journalist, when Keller was in her thirties. The story was inspired by a little-known period in Keller's life, as detailed in the biography Helen Keller: A Life by Dorothy Herrmann, and explores the potential details of their relationship and its impact on Keller.

What the novel is about:

The historical basis: .

The novel is based on the real-life relationship between Helen Keller and Peter Fagan, a journalist who served as Keller's private secretary when her longtime teacher, Anne Sullivan, was ill. The romance: .

The story depicts the development of their passionate connection, which involved communicating through finger-spelling.

The family's disapproval: .

The relationship was met with stern opposition from Keller's family and Sullivan, who believed that women with disabilities, particularly deaf-blind women, should not marry.

A "might-have-been" story: .

Sultan's novel brings a "grown-up Helen" to life, imagining the events and feelings during this time, which Keller herself rarely wrote about.