She is complicated, at many points broken but trying hard to chan ge her situation. The characterization of V creates an unforgettable young woman. This overlooked calamity in history is exposed through fact, while simultaneously, the story of V is told through fiction. There are lists, statistics, and pictures utilized to build credibility and reveal widely unknown aspects of reformation school s. The novel is broken into small sections-some telling a powerful narrative of V’s story, while others are excerpts of historical documents. O’Connor’s ability to dance between historical facts and creative fiction is the foundation of the novel. The story is captivating, from the remarkable character of V, to the unearthing of the startling practices of Minnesotan reform schools. Although she is a child and a victim of injustice and abuse, her resiliency and hope shine throughout her stor y. After an unplanned pregnancy, she battles the system and its inaccurate claims of reformation for young mothers. The novel is placed in the 1930’s, where the standards of immorality contrast many of today’s values. Sheila O’Connor’s Evidence of V is a genre-defying novel, which combines elements of fact and fiction to tell the story of O’Connor’s maternal grandmothe r V, who is a young singer who hopes to be a star in Minneapolis. Samuel King is a student trying for a Creative Writing Certificate at Anoka-Ramsey, before going elsewhere to get a degree in philosophy. The novel, to me, read like pained memories, with a bit of fiction filling in the gaps between fragments. Through their ensuing research, the question of what happened to V remains like an open wound, causing pain to her daughter and granddaughter decades later. S he initially refuses to believe it’s hers, but she eventually leaves with it. June, the narrator’s mother, goes to get her birth certificate after it is unsealed by the court. Data and quotations from historical sources list the regiments V was subject to, and attempt to justify “immorality” as a punishable offence. Minnesota Home School for Girls at Sauk Centre was as real as the photos O’Connor provides. Actual poems are injected between scenes, bracketed away from the narrative, and often pondering how real it all can be.īut it isn’t all fiction. The sentences themselves are often fragments, more resembling prose poetry than straight prose. Chapters act like snapshots of a single scene, sometimes less than a page long. Most characters have only one name, and V and Mr. One page outright questions the veracity of the book and the narrator’s truthfulness with a True/False test. Whether this story and its elements are fact or fiction is left intentionally, almost aggressively ambiguous. However, V is caught, charged with “immorality, ” and incarcerated in a “school” to teach her how to be a proper woman. They even conceive a child : the narrator’s mother, June. It’s almost sweet enough to obscure its predatory nature. They begin a relationship, he calls her Little Fox, and she visits him at his home. They bond over their shared ostracism, him being a Jewish man and her being a young woman. C, a nightclub owner with illegal business dealings, who makes her an entertainer. From her first appearance, skipping school to earn money dancing for strangers on the street, V is at odds with the dominant values of America at the time. The story follows V, a 15 year old girl in 1930s Minneapolis, modeled vaguely after Sheila O’Connor’s grandmother. Evidence of V, advertised on the cover as “a novel of fragments, facts, and fictions, ” is the product of such a search, in a collage of narrative snapshots, historical excerpts, and poetic snippets, with interludes from the modern day acting as a framing device. My curiosity remains steady, but mild in comparison to the seemingly painful need others have towards uncovering their family’s history. O n a trip to Ellis Island, I spent a while searching the names memorialized before learning he probably arrived somewhere. My great-great-grandfather came to America from Denmark alone at 14.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |