In the case of a person with cultural influence like McCullers whose life was not “straight,” sometimes they restrict access to or withhold certain documents to avoid revealing facets of their own life. It is often legal and criminal records that inform our understanding of the lives of women and minorities of the past (and present). Archives used to be and still often are places where the papers and records of those with power are preserved. In the case of women and queers or any person from a marginalized group, their papers or records (if there were any) were not collected. If Carson was a lesbian, and if her relationships bore that out, wouldn’t someone already have said so? Wouldn’t it be know beyond rumors in the queer community? It was a real mind-fuck, the back-and-forth between scanning indexes of heavily research biographies that do not contain the words “gay” or “lesbian” or “homosexual” and reading Carson’s adamant descriptions of her own feelings and experiences.” page 41Īs a student of archives, I’m well aware of the silences and erasures in archives.
“I didn’t trust the discovery of Carson’s relationship with Mary that I found in the transcripts, in part because I suddenly didn’t trust myself as a reader.
There’s a deep honesty here that I can relate to about how research feels as a lesbian researching another lesbian or queer woman from an earlier time period. It is a brilliant, ground breaking model of how to deal with archival silences by incorporating life experience and theory. The way Shapland entwines McCuller’s biography with her own life experience, research, and interaction with archival objects is exciting and unique. In the case of My Autobiography of Carson McCullers, I finished the free preview, immediately purchased the full digital copy, and then stayed up too late reading. Reading one of those is often good enough for the night.
When I’m between books and don’t know what I want to read next, I often download a free preview. I like to have a book going on it for bedtime reading (no fumbling with a book light, no grumbling from my wife about bright lights).
A couple weeks ago I was looking for something to read on my e-reader.
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