We see the parallels between the writer and the subject, and that illustrates the persistence of racism in the region- one of the things that connects “you and me and the generations between and beyond us,” Jackson writes to Markus. The central topic of the prologue is the history of Blackness in Oregon, and Jackson connects each era of that history to himself and Markus- even the time, like the 1920s, when neither Markus nor Jackson were alive. And the prologue fits into this hybrid style: Jackson, an Oregon native, writes a letter to Markus, the first known Black man to set foot in what became Oregon, in 1788. Jackson’s Survival Math is mostly a memoir of his own life and family- but it’s also about larger social and racial issues, all “framed” within Jackson’s story (as the back cover describes it). Many readers do this as they read, across all genres (hello, my fellow Jo Marches and Hermione Grangers), so why can’t the writer make their connection explicit? Mitchell S. As a reader and a writer, I see three main purposes or benefits of this style: to draw connections between the writer and subject to be transparent about the reporting and writing process to show the reader why the writer cares and why they should, too.įirst: When the creative nonfiction writer is allowed to exist within the work, they can draw parallels between themselves and their subject, as Swift did with Harkness. I haven’t encountered it widely, but it seems to be increasing in popularity. It’s somewhere at the intersection of reported nonfiction and memoir and immersion journalism. If there’s a name for this subgenre, I haven’t found it yet. As she writes about the 1986 fire at the Los Angeles Library and the many functions of the library system today, she not only keeps herself in the scenes but also shares with readers her own love for libraries. But I liked it in fact, I love Orlean’s writing style in The Library Book. Never, in all the journalistic articles I had written, had I pointed out to the reader that a quote was said to me- never had I pointed out that I existed at all. When, in the third line of The Library Book, Susan Orlean writes that a source said something “to me,” it felt like breaking the rules. I was a journalism major, so I’ve always appreciated a well-reported piece that teaches me something- but typically, the writer is nowhere to be found. Recently, that’s been one of my favorite styles of creative nonfiction to read and write. (Harkness may have been “the maddest woman this town has ever seen” now Swift carries on her legacy as the “loudest.”) Taylor Swift gave us a history lesson, filtered through her own connection to this woman. In three minutes and fifty-one seconds, Swift gave us a full portrait of this woman- and drew parallels between Harkness’s life and her own. And yes, she really did dye a neighbor’s pet green. It was a surprise twist in a surprise album, a connection to the songwriter herself in a song that turned out to be true- Rebekah Harkness lived in Rhode Island in a house that Taylor Swift purchased for $17.75 million forty years after Harkness died. The song was fiction, I assumed, and Rebekah a creation of Taylor Swift’s- until the bridge, when Swift (always master of the bridge) sings:įree of women with madness, their men and bad habitsĪnd then it was bought by me! If everyone in the house hadn’t been asleep, I would have yelled the words. I liked the first two songs a lot, but the third, “the last great American dynasty,” especially drew me in- the story of a woman named Rebekah, a divorcee who partied her husband to death and scandalized the small town in which she lived, in the mansion she named the Holiday House. Shortly after midnight on July 24, 2020, I was listening to folklore, Taylor Swift’s first surprise album.

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