Keeping Family Secrets: Shame and Silence in Memoirs from the 1950s
by: Nelson, Margaret K.

Hardcover. NY, NYU Press, 1st, 2022, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright dust jacket, 241 pages. INSCRIBED BY AUTHOR on front fly leaf. All families have secrets but the facts requiring secrecy change with time. Nowadays A lesbian partnership, a "bastard" son, an aunt who is a prostitute, or a criminal grandfather might be of little or no consequence but could have unraveled a family at an earlier moment in history. Margaret K. Nelson is interested in how families keep secrets from each other and from outsiders when to do otherwise would risk eliciting not only embarrassment or discomfort, but profound shame and, in some cases, danger. Drawing on over 150 memoirs describing childhoods in the period between the aftermath of World War II and the 1960s, Nelson highlights the importance of history in creating family secrets and demonstrates the use of personal stories to understand how people make sense of themselves and their social worlds. Clean copy.