5/21/2023 0 Comments Hermia druittOne of the first things marginalized researchers in the humanities discover is that the choices about who and what materials are important enough to include in archives, and how that material will be presented, actively works to nullify non-whiteness and queerness. While this phantom in the archives offers a mystery that catalyzes the narrative of LOTE, I suspect von Reinhold understands that, in practice, such experiences with archives are hardly mysterious-or even uncommon. Primary sources from the period either elide the young woman entirely, or refer to her via demeaning racialized epithets. Who is this person? And why has Mathilda, who is obsessed with the Bright Young Things of 1920s British literary and artistic society, never heard of her? Yet the archive offers only further confusion. When Mathilda, the protagonist of the novel, finds a century-old photograph of an unidentified young Black woman on the arm of British socialite Stephen Tennant, she turns to the archive for answers. What can our official histories tell us about ourselves? Shola von Reinhold’s debut novel, LOTE (2021), suggests that one answer is: very little.
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