How Am I to Be Heard?

Book excerpt: This compelling volume offers the first full portrait of the life and work of writer Lillian Smith (1897-1966), the foremost southern white liberal of the mid-twentieth century. Smith devoted her life to lifting the veil of southern self-deception about race, class, gender, and sexuality. Her books, essays, and especially her letters explored the ways in which the South's attitudes and institutions perpetuated a dehumanizing experience for all its people--white and black, male and female, rich and poor. Her best-known books are Strange Fruit (1944), a bestselling interracial love story that brought her international acclaim; and Killers of the Dream (1949), an autobiographical critique of southern race relations that angered many southerners, including powerful moderates. Subsequently, Smith was effectively silenced as a writer. Rose Gladney has selected 145 of Smith's 1500 extant letters for this volume. Arranged chronologically and annotated, they present a complete picture of Smith as a committed artist and reveal the burden of her struggles as a woman, including her lesbian relationship with Paula Snelling. Gladney argues that this triple isolation--as woman, lesbian, and artist--from mainstream southern culture permitted Smith to see and to expose southern prejudices with absolute clarity.