If you assume, based on the title of Dustin Lance Black’s book, that it is a paean to his mother, you would be correct. Knowing just how influential she was to him requires a lot of background and a fairly lengthy recounting of their familial history. Contracting polio when she was only two years old led to years of treatment, surgeries, and therapy. An amazing level of grit and determination led to outcomes that surprised the family but confirmed Rose Anna as a force. At the time, the prognosis was grim. Being born into an impoverished family in a community with little opportunity for success, makes her efforts even more remarkable. We tend to forget how grim the outlook was for patients before medical science provided any promise. FDR brought attention to the disease but the approaches varied widely, due to competing and often contradictory treatments. Warm Springs, the resort started by FDR tried a then-new approach to treatment that incorporated physical therapy that was much less painful that the Shriner’s Hospital approach that concentrated on multiple, painful surgeries.
Because her family could not afford care, Rose Anna relied on charity from the March of Dimes (also started by FDR). After an embezzlement scandal in the local fundraising office, there were no longer funds to pay for the treatment at Warm Springs. The only other option was to seek the painful treatments of the Shriner’s Hospital in New Orleans. Determined to let “her arms be her legs,” Rose Anna usually eschewed a wheelchair and relied on crutches and braces for mobility. It is difficult to comprehend how a child who spent thirteen years of her young life away from home and in the care of strangers could summon the strength to achieve what she so wanted —children, an education, a career.
His mother became a Mormon while she was in college. In the Mormon Church, the faithful are promised a heaven in which everyone is perfect, no flaws or afflictions. This was a more desirable outcome than the Baptist or Methodists promised. When she met a handsome Mormon, Raul Garrison, he was subject to the draft. However, if he was married to a disabled woman, he would not be called up for service. They married but he was a less than ideal husband. Though warned throughout her life that attempting to have children would be a disaster for her and likely her offspring, she did it anyway. Three times.
Raul had a checkered history with work, failing at many jobs and often traveling for long stretches. When home, he abused Ann (she chose different versions of her name as she aged). Further, Raul began an affair with his first cousin and wanted Ann to accept, and join in, the arrangement. There are fundamentalist factions in the Mormon Church that practice incest and polygamy. Perhaps Black incorporated his own experience into his writing for HBO’s “Big Love?”
She divorces the first husband but then marries another Mormon, Merrill Black, a Priesthood Holder who baptizes the sons, adopts them and changes their name. This husband was abusive. It is shocking to read that the Mormon approach to domestic violence was to turn to the Bishops, not law enforcement. Further, the Bishops suggested the wife was somehow lacking in her commitment if the husband abused her. At this point, it is fair to wonder why anyone would continue in this faith-based nightmare. The partial explanation suggested is that faith and family are the touchstones of existence. If you grow up poor in a community with little or no opportunity, faith and family is about all you can count on.
Fortunately, Merrill is shipped off to South Korea and the family begins planning another extrication from a failed marriage. Ann met a younger man, Jeff, who seemed to be the polar opposites of the other husbands. Jeff, a 21-year-old, injured paratrooper begins an affair with Ann. They married and a new opportunity for Jeff meant that they would relocate to Salinas, CA. Though Lance is only 13, he views San Francisco and Los Angeles as sinful, awful places that were depicted on the national news as the center off all bad news and home to many, many homosexuals. Of course, teenage Lance is already questioning his sexuality and worries that the move will be too much for him to navigate. He befriends an older student, Ryan, who is a ringleader of his rag-tag group of buddies. Though Lance is accepted to Film School at USC (a pretty remarkable effort), they have no way to pay for the private university costs. He convinces Ryan to pack up, move to Southern California, attend community college, then try his luck with film school at UCLA. He would still be poor, but in-state tuition would be a more plausible option. Remarkably, he is accepted at the highly selective film school. Ryan was not having the same level of success. Ryan eventually gets his life back together, then comes out to Lance. It would take longer for Lance to make the same confession to Ryan.
Lance’s coming out is angst-ridden because of the Mormon implications, though he does seem to be making slow progress toward acceptance. While visiting Ann and Jeff in Virginia for Christmas in 1995, Ann becomes furious over the coverage of “don’t ask, don’t tell” and cannot understand why he is not similarly outraged. When he starts to cry, she understands why. Eventually, he also comes out to his brothers and stepfather.
Most people know of Dustin Lance Black as the Oscar-winning screenwriter of “Milk.” His stirring acceptance speech is one for the ages and echoes what Harvey Milk said many years earlier about those lonely kids in San Antonio or Provo. His call for federal action drew criticism from LGBT leaders. Too much, too soon, they surmised. This called to mind Kerry Eleveld’s history of the movement in “Don’t Tell me to Wait,” published earlier this year. Another infuriating reminder that we have often been told to settle for crumbs and that bold action will backfire. When Lance meets the late civil rights leader Julian Bond, he is told “Good things do not come to those who wait, they come to those who agitate.”
Lance is passionate about pursuing equality, especially after his older brother Marcus came out to him. Marcus was a very different person, who loved NASCAR, music, drugs and just about every stereotypical heterosexual pursuit. It would be a bigger challenge for him to live his life freely than for Lance, who lived in a supporting world of like-minded souls.
The book takes a rather dark turn when Ann is battling cancer and Marcus is also diagnosed. How could this family survive so much suffering? Some of the scenes are brutal. Though faith seems to play less of a central role in their lives, their deep, abiding love of family sustains them. The book really is a tribute to his remarkable mother.
Published by https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/
REVIEW: STEPHEN COY
Queerguru Contributor STEPHEN COY has been an avid reader all his (very long) life ? and is finally putting his skills to good use. He lives in Provincetown full time with his husband Jim, having finally given up the bright lights of Boston and now haunts the streets mumbling to himself that no one reads anymore …
P.S. Queerguru suggests you may also like to check out the interview we filmed with DUSTIN LANCE BLACK
https:// queerguru.com/dustin-lance-black-on-why-hes-happy-to-be-a-mamas-boy/
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