When we tear down our past
Like many Americans living in this tumultuous time, I’ve watched in awe through my pandemic quarantine the uprisings to protest the murder of George Floyd. As someone who belongs to an oft-oppressed community, I fully understand this fiery impulse to bring about the finale to our legacy of systemic racism. But history isn’t about erasing; it’s about recording and remembering, if we hold any hope of evading our mistakes.
Then statues came tumbling down. I now understand why statues of confederate generals, the majority of which were erected during the Jim Crow era to glorify white supremacy, were being ripped asunder. But as statues of Columbus, Fray Junipero Serra, and even the writer Cervantes were either defaced or yanked from pedestals in Golden Gate Park in San Francisco — a city named for the Franciscan friar of Assisi, patron saint of animals — I began to ponder the cost of erasing these visible symbols of our harrowing past.
You see, I traffic in the past. I write novels about historical women, many of whom did not behave well. While Serra and Columbus are polarizing figures who shouldn’t be glorified, much like my protagonists, they were the result of their particular eras. It all brought back unsettling memories of when I published my novel THE QUEEN’S VOW about Queen Isabella of Castile, whose statues are now also being removed.
While on tour in Poland, a radio host booked by my Polish publisher to interview me took me to task on air for “glamorizing a ruthless tyrant and anti-Semitic.” Our initial pre-air meeting had been cordial, so I was taken aback as I tried to explain through my translator that I don’t in any way support Isabella’s actions — I’m a pagan gay man who would have been burned at the stake during her reign — but I wrote my novel to attempt to show her point of view, as I do in all my work. Isabella was an extraordinary figure for her era, a regnant queen never expected to inherit the throne. She ended up uniting fractious Spain, a feat no Iberian monarch before her had achieved. While her actions were unquestionably brutal, they were undertaken in the name of a faith she fervently believed in, misguided as it was. I cited that in her final testament, she stated her opposition to the enslavement of native people and there’s extant evidence that she underwent a profound struggle of conscience over her exile of non-converted Jews from Spain. While none of this can excuse what she did, as a novelist I felt it was important to reveal the flawed humanity behind her formidable legend.
Well, the host wasn’t having any of it. He went on to pen internet essays condemning my book, which became a bestseller in Poland. He also took to stalking me for a time, posting irate missives on my social media. All this over a novel, in which I’d made clear my intentions for writing it.
I had a similar experience when I published MADEMOISELLE CHANEL, about the French fashion designer, Coco Chanel. One person on twitter went berserk, flinging accusations that I’d turned a “Nazi bitch-collaborator” into an unsullied heroine. This person refused to be placated and followed me around the internet, posting one-star reviews anywhere they could and inundating my inbox with diatribes. I was appalled to see myself being accused once again of Antisemitism because of my choice in subject matter, particularly given my heritage.
Yes, I write novels about controversial women who behaved very badly; that doesn’t mean I support their beliefs. But the past should be explored in both its glory and tragedy; in my albeit small way, this is what I seek to do in my work. I inhabit these women so readers can experience her world through her eyes, to understand that she was fallible, not always nice, yet also undeniably human. We make the mistake of branding others without seeking to know why they became who they were. To heal our present and ensure our future isn’t tainted by our same mistakes, we must embrace and understand the past. We must look the wrongs in the eye and say, Never again.
Some things must come down, like the Berlin Wall. But other things, like statues, can be re-purposed to serve as warnings and historical lessons, as testaments to a less enlightened yesterday and our resolve to build an equitable tomorrow. As I see statues tumble, I cannot help but wonder, should my books be burned, too?
