CASSANDRA LANE was eleven years old when she told her mother she wanted to be a writer—but she added that she wanted to be "behind the scenes." Well, she's not behind the scenes anymore.
Cassandra Lane and her memoir both sound fascinating. Thank you for highlighting her on How We Spend Our Days. As the child of an Indigenous dad and a white mom, I have questions similar to Cassandra's about what happened to the Indigenous side of my family. Her search for information, and her frank portrayal of her path to motherhood, both interest me because we are in danger of losing not just our abortion rights, but even the language of a chosen abortion she writes as, "And so I, her quietly obstinate firstborn, held her just-out-of-the-womb lastborn mere weeks after I had aborted what would have been her firstborn grandchild." As an obstinate third born who chose not to have children, I honor her choices at seventeen and later, and am curious to know more.
What a beautiful comment, Katherine. And yes, yes, we're in danger of losing both the rights and the language. Since Cassandra's search for information about her family when so few records were kept about Blacks in 1904 and her path to motherhood in recent times push this story forward, I think you would love the book. And it's so beautifully written. Nice to be in conversation here.
Thank you, Cynthia. When I read that Cassandra Lane's great grandfather was lynched in 1904, I immediately thought of the difficulties presented to her in researching her family. My assumption is that much of the information would be provided through the lenses of the owners or former owners of humans, and those that accepted such ownership, rather than the humans themselves. It is the same for Indigenous information, particularly for tribes not deemed legitimate by the colonizers who decimated the populations, took the land, and almost, but not quite, silenced the oral-tradition voices. When I read your post I thought of three things : 1) My dad, and later me, trying to find resources that begin with colonizer records and academic records and analysis, some more accurate than others. I'd like to make sense of the information and the actions of the traumatized generations that followed. Generations that I until recently could not see as traumatized because they were remarkable and I was proud of them. 2) The extraordinary 1978 Claudia Weill film Girlfriends, which I saw for the first time streaming on Criterion Channel a couple of years ago. It astonished me because in it a superb cast including Melanie Mayron, Christopher Guest, Anita Skinner, Eli Wallach, and Viveca Lindfors move through a story in which an abortion is mentioned as a choice in a straightforward way as part of a larger conversation, and a man and woman who have had sex and slept together move about the next morning as real people would. The film reminded that we seem to be stepping back in time away from the progress I once thought ongoing and inevitable. Cassandra's book seems that it would speak to both of those things in one way or another that would hold great interest for me. (Stanley Kubrick on Girlfriends: "I think one of the most interesting Hollywood films, well not Hollywood—American films—that I've seen in a long time is Claudia Weill's Girlfriends. That film, I thought, was one of the very rare American films that I would compare with the serious, intelligent, sensitive writing and filmmaking that you find in the best directors in Europe. It wasn't a success, I don't know why; it should have been. Certainly I thought it was a wonderful film. It seemed to make no compromise to the inner truth of the story, you know, the theme and everything else...") 3) How Maud Newton's recent book Ancestor Trouble might fit with Cassandra's work.
Apologies for length. I found your topic inspiring.
Fascinating, Catherine. Thanks so much for sharing your own family's search and the issues you faced. I will add that at sixteen and because her mother was against abortions, Cassandra had to sneak away for hers, so at the time, there was silence. But another piece of her intention in writing this book is to tell the whole truth of her family. Thanks also for the mention of the Weill film--I've ordered it to watch tonight.
Cassandra Lane and her memoir both sound fascinating. Thank you for highlighting her on How We Spend Our Days. As the child of an Indigenous dad and a white mom, I have questions similar to Cassandra's about what happened to the Indigenous side of my family. Her search for information, and her frank portrayal of her path to motherhood, both interest me because we are in danger of losing not just our abortion rights, but even the language of a chosen abortion she writes as, "And so I, her quietly obstinate firstborn, held her just-out-of-the-womb lastborn mere weeks after I had aborted what would have been her firstborn grandchild." As an obstinate third born who chose not to have children, I honor her choices at seventeen and later, and am curious to know more.
What a beautiful comment, Katherine. And yes, yes, we're in danger of losing both the rights and the language. Since Cassandra's search for information about her family when so few records were kept about Blacks in 1904 and her path to motherhood in recent times push this story forward, I think you would love the book. And it's so beautifully written. Nice to be in conversation here.
Thank you, Cynthia. When I read that Cassandra Lane's great grandfather was lynched in 1904, I immediately thought of the difficulties presented to her in researching her family. My assumption is that much of the information would be provided through the lenses of the owners or former owners of humans, and those that accepted such ownership, rather than the humans themselves. It is the same for Indigenous information, particularly for tribes not deemed legitimate by the colonizers who decimated the populations, took the land, and almost, but not quite, silenced the oral-tradition voices. When I read your post I thought of three things : 1) My dad, and later me, trying to find resources that begin with colonizer records and academic records and analysis, some more accurate than others. I'd like to make sense of the information and the actions of the traumatized generations that followed. Generations that I until recently could not see as traumatized because they were remarkable and I was proud of them. 2) The extraordinary 1978 Claudia Weill film Girlfriends, which I saw for the first time streaming on Criterion Channel a couple of years ago. It astonished me because in it a superb cast including Melanie Mayron, Christopher Guest, Anita Skinner, Eli Wallach, and Viveca Lindfors move through a story in which an abortion is mentioned as a choice in a straightforward way as part of a larger conversation, and a man and woman who have had sex and slept together move about the next morning as real people would. The film reminded that we seem to be stepping back in time away from the progress I once thought ongoing and inevitable. Cassandra's book seems that it would speak to both of those things in one way or another that would hold great interest for me. (Stanley Kubrick on Girlfriends: "I think one of the most interesting Hollywood films, well not Hollywood—American films—that I've seen in a long time is Claudia Weill's Girlfriends. That film, I thought, was one of the very rare American films that I would compare with the serious, intelligent, sensitive writing and filmmaking that you find in the best directors in Europe. It wasn't a success, I don't know why; it should have been. Certainly I thought it was a wonderful film. It seemed to make no compromise to the inner truth of the story, you know, the theme and everything else...") 3) How Maud Newton's recent book Ancestor Trouble might fit with Cassandra's work.
Apologies for length. I found your topic inspiring.
Fascinating, Catherine. Thanks so much for sharing your own family's search and the issues you faced. I will add that at sixteen and because her mother was against abortions, Cassandra had to sneak away for hers, so at the time, there was silence. But another piece of her intention in writing this book is to tell the whole truth of her family. Thanks also for the mention of the Weill film--I've ordered it to watch tonight.