Peggy/Meg

Peggy Fleming, nee Villaincourt, later Meg Brown, is born in 1948 to an Episcopal preacher and his wife. Peggy determines early on that she is a lesbian, which her mother explains will make her life very difficult. Peggy doesn’t mind. She is tough, intelligent, and has great aspirations to be a writer. She attends Stillwater College, and even though she is only 17, she begins a sexual relationship with Lee Fleming, eight years her senior, that results in an unplanned pregnancy and a wedding. They ultimately have two children, Byrd and Mireille.

Peggy is surprised by her sexual attraction to Lee given that she is a lesbian, but the marriage quickly falls apart due to a clash of personalities, Lee’s dominance, and Peggy’s unhappiness with being a housewife and mother. She runs away with Mireille, assumes the name Meg Brown, and raises Mireille as a black...