Writing for Sarah Moses

I am at that stage of writing, for my seventh book, in which I start to wonder "why"?  I have been working on Africa Existential for over five years now and am currently checking every single quotation and reference for accuracy.  What a joy.

Writing a book seemed easier twenty-five years ago, when I was working on my first one.  It seemed easier because I thought that what I wrote would have a big impact.  I had a book contract with Harvard University Press, which seemed like a sort of miracle, and so I assumed that my book would be a big deal: a history of violence against wives in Oregon from a big-name publisher.

It was not.  I called multiple radio stations and other Portland media outlets for interviews.  Most did not return my calls.  Finally, the leading news radio station of the day decided to give me a few minutes, but then an airplane crashed, so they cut me to a few seconds.  I visited the local Barnes & Noble and found two copies of my book, which was cool.  They had me sign them and put them in a more prominent spot, where they sat for weeks.  (I know this because I regularly checked.)

The book eventually went into paperback, got some positive (and not so positive) reviews, and of course it was great for my academic career.  But there was nothing remotely resembling fame, let alone fortune.

But there were some smaller rewards.  A couple of years after the book came out I was in the U of O Library and saw a professor who had taught me statistical analysis, a tool I had later used in my research.  So I found a copy of my book on the shelf and showed him as a way to both boast a bit and to thank him for his help.  I assigned the book for courses on the history of violence (how else was I going to get people to read it?), and a former student told me that she started working in the battered-women's movement because of the book.  That meant a lot.  I suppose writing a book is a like a lot of other things we pour ourselves into; it is hard to assess the impact.

The title of the book, What Trouble I Have Seen, referenced a quotation that I found in the voluminous divorce records that constituted the heart of the book.  When a father asked his married daughter why her face was bruised, she replied, "Pa, the world will never know what trouble I have seen."  Certainly Sarah Moses would not have guessed that these words, uttered in private, would end up on the cover of a book more than a century later.

So, as long as research libraries--in whatever form they make take in the future--persist, that woman's words will be preserved.  I guess that's the biggest and most subtle pay-off for the years of toil I put into that book: It brought to light remarkable lives that had been hidden in the folds of musty records stashed away in boxes buried in courthouse basements.  And I think it taught me some empathy.

Perhaps our books (like the rest of our lives) would be better if we remembered that they are not all about us.  They are about the people's lives we have the privilege of presenting to the world, a sort of immortality.