“That’s Lucy. This is her daughter, Gracie.”

This is a quote from Suyin as she shows her benefactor, Morris, around the undersea research facility he has funded when they sight a mother/calf pairing of blue whales. I admire the allusion. I also resent and reject it. The allusion is to early TV (mostly) star comics Lucille Ball and Gracie Alllen. Great. Droll. Sly. The reality is that Gracie Allen was at least twice the comic wit of the lead in I Love Lucy. Gracie did her own stuff. Lucy had a staff of writers. Gracie was a flawed and loveable human being, who used the sexism of the era to the benefit of her art, her man, and, not for nothing, herself. Lucy, on the other hand, lied to her husband, cried to summon sympathy for her weakness, and whom I neither liked nor admited. The Meg got it wrong. Gracie is the mother. Lucy is the bastard child.