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Martha Cooley's The Archivist, etc.



    Someone mentioned this novel (Martha Cooley's The Archivist) as a
mystery in an earlier post.  If you do not want the plot "spoiled" read no
further.
    Cooley's novel is what I would call "psychological," not a mystery.  It
is extremely well written and deals with mental illness and anti-Semitism.
    I was terribly disappointed in it, however, because I felt the use of
archives and archivists in it was gratuitous and a waste of a great title
for someone else.
    Any archivist would be horrified at the ending where the Archivist
supposedly moves to a higher plain by destroying the collection that has
been put into his care.  The story is really from the point of view (even
when described by the male archivist) of a woman researcher who illegally
gains access to a closed collection for her own research purposes.  I felt
that this excellent writer knew very little about records in a general sense
and was perhaps writing out of her own stymied research experience.
    These attitudes are mainstream, however.  People see no contradiction in
wanting papers destroyed when they reveal things they do not want known and
at the same time want instant access to the papers of other people who also
want their lives hidden.

    Two recent postings have disturbed me:

>To make a

short story long, an Amish fellow, by the surname of Amstutz as I recall,

staged a barn fire near Millersburg or Holmes County area, in which he

actually murdered his young wife. Apparently the authorities in that county

did not feel the barn fire was suspicious, so little investigation was done.

Anyway, Amstutz, who was gay and wanted to pursue that lifestyle, takes his

young child, leaving that Amish community. To come out of the closet in the

Amish community would have really been a shocker. Apparently, his departure

was felt to be consistent with that of a newly widowered [sic] young man,
wanting

to leave bad memories and all that behind. With his carpentry skills, he was

able to make a living for himself, and somehow he ended up in TX or NE or

that part of the country. However, he had taken up with the gay crowd, and

lord knows, what the child endured during this time.<

    I fully understand someone being upset and condemning about murder and
child abuse.  However, the fact that the man was gay is not what makes him
criminal.  If he took his child to bars and had sex in front of him (which
you can do whatever your sexuality), I am in agreement with the feeling.
But "taken up with a gay crowd" is the worst kind of stereotyping and
well--nonsense.  Most gay crowds I am in nowadays are to watch TV and eat
popcorn or have a potluck or go hiking.



>we acquired the papers of a =

self proclaimed minister (female) who had a deep dislike for Lyndon B. =

Johnson and other strange habits. <

WHAAAAAT!   Disliking a president is a strange habit?????   Just don't get
me started on Nixon.

Elizabeth W. Knowlton
Manuscripts Curator
Georgia Dept. of Archives and History
Atlanta, GA  30334
404-656-2397

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