KATHERINE KRESSMANN TAYLOR, ADDRESS UNKNOWN
I no longer remember what we were escaping from.
A strong hold on our collective memories and imagination; it is not only a part of history, but also a part of our communal mythology.
The main facts of the war and can shine a light on some new aspect of the struggle…
She was writing about the present, about what she observed and understood in the world around her.
Each creates a very particular world that simultaneously holds up a mirror to the present and suggests possibilities for the future.
The confounding questions at the heart of the narrative: how do we know what we know, and when do we know it? Why does a good person become a bad person? What power does a citizen have against the state
I found myself thinking how fortunate we were to live in a time and place where we could work and talk as equals. Only later did I learn that afterward, to make me realize how painfully limited my understanding was of the lives of Black Americans. The evidence was all around me, yet I had managed to have no idea of the ways in which racism, fear, authorized brutality and prejudice affected, to varying degrees, everyone in the Black community…
Banishes the narrator’s voice and moral stance; the letters represents only the point of view of the characters.
It allows a useful compression. Readers have a sense of eavesdropping; they don’t expect to understand everything, or to learn every detail. Their assumption is that the letter writer has something important to communicate, and too much explaining can make a letter seem contrived.
No longer do the people wrap themselves in shame; they hope again.’
They become aware that something was wrong… a force was resisting them, something they could not put their hands on - a belief.
We read them with both our outer and our inner eyes. We bring to them the swirling chaos of the world around us and the seemingly endless negotiations between the forces of good and evil, and we bing to them our deep-seated, long-lasting preoccupations.
No one ever bothers to tell her that any particular piece of hers is bad, because they are all so bad.
She asked about you, in a very friendly way. There is no bitterness left there, for that passes quickly when one is young as she is. A few years and there is only a memory of the hurt, and of course neither of you was to be blamed. Those things are like quick storms, for a moment you are drenched and blasted, and you are so wholly helpless before them. But then the sun comes out, and although you have neither quite forgotten, there remains only gentleness and no sorrow.
What a long way we have traveled, as peoples, from the bitterness.