GLR March-April 2023

nuclear family as the standard social unit that “became hege monic among White people.” Needless to say, the “secrets” analyzed in this book have al ready been revealed many times over, as memoirs from this era abound. This book is itself based on memoirs by people who lived through this era, people whose often jaw-dropping per sonal stories came to light once it was safe to reveal them in memoirs. The “secrets” are organized into categories: absent siblings, i.e., children who were institutionalized all their lives because of physical or mental disabilities; same-sex desire among boys; “unwed mothers”; parents who were members of the Communist Party; unorthodox conceptions (hidden adop tions); and hidden Jewish ancestry. This was the kind of infor mation that existed behind closed doors but clashed with the popular image of respectable families. In a chapter titled “The Sounds of Silence,” Nelson de scribes the concealment of same-sex desire among boys. In most cases, boys learned that revealing such desires would be dangerous, and when parents or siblings suspected that young Johnny was not “normal” (sports-loving, into girls, etc.), there was often an unspoken family pact either to exclude him, or to shield him from the hostile outside world. As Nelson points out, homosexuality was illegal in most states, was considered sinful by most religious denominations, and was defined as a psychi atric illness until 1973. Possible consequences of being “outed” were so terrifying that staying closeted for life usually seemed the only safe option. Why did the author focus only on boys? Nelson says that her research into memoirs did not turn up many memoirs by women who reported same-sex desire in their youth: “Gendered notions about what is acceptable for women to say and do might account for some hesitation on the part of publishers to have made visible that version of female sexuality.” The few accounts from females the author found differed from those of males in several ways. First, girls with romantic feelings for other girls could usually hide them in close friendships. Second, “the girls came to recognize their own desires considerably later.” This “coming out” process for women was often associated with dis covering feminism, whereas for the men of that era it didn’t have the same connection to a political commitment. The au thor doesn’t mention the possibility of transgender children or teenagers in the 1950s, though they must have existed. There were numerous opportunities for girls to become so cial outcasts in that era. In “Paying the Price of Silence,” Nel son discusses unwanted pregnancy among unmarried girls, which logically followed from another secret: illicit heterosex ual sex. If a shotgun wedding could not be arranged, the conse quences for the young mother were brutal. She was usually sent to a “home for unwed mothers,” where she was eventually pres sured to give her baby up for adoption. In some cases, the long term separation of young mothers from their children led to quests by adults raised by adoptive parents to find their birth mothers, and vice versa. A search for hidden origins led several of the memoirists to uncover a variety of secrets: not only birth mothers, but in some cases alternative families. It’s not really surprising that some families hid their Jewish “roots” during and immediately after World War II. However, the extent of the secret culture of Com munist families (parallel to other “minority” cultures), complete

with summer camps for their children, seems like an aspect of postwar American life that should be better known. What this book reveals is fascinating, but the stories that still seem to be missing are even more so. The author’s source ma terial was clearly limited, and, as she explains, family “secrets” of the 1950s were often kept secret until the deaths of all those who knew the truth. This study could be considered the tip of an iceberg. ____________________________________________________ Jean Roberta is a widely published writer based in Regina, Canada.

Viva the Counterrevolution

R EGINALD H ARRIS

SACRIFICIO: A Novel by Ernesto Mestre-Reed Soho Press. 456 pages, $27.

I N ERNESTO MESTRE-REED’S novel Sacrificio , Rafa is a penniless Afro-Cuban teenager from the rural eastern part of the country who travels to the fishing village of Cojímar, famous as the setting for Hemingway’s novel The Old Man and the Sea . Rafa is cruised and picked up by Nicolás, then taken to Havana to become a waiter in the semi-legal restaurant run by Nicolás’ family. Welcomed as another son by Nicolás’ strong willed mother Cecilia, the family struggles to make do while catering to the dwindling number of “Yuma,” foreign tourists. Havana itself is on edge. It is the late 1990s, and Cuba’s main source of assistance, the Soviet Union, has collapsed, sending the nation’s economy into a tailspin. Nonlethal bombs aimed at popular tourist locations are going off throughout the city, followed by mysterious graffiti that seems to pop up every where. All this occurs as Pope John Paul II is scheduled to make a historic visit to the country. Nicolás and his younger brother Renato appear to be slackers, with no interest in helping in the family restaurant or anything else beyond the pursuit of casual pickups, “perfecting the art of la nada, their little charade against revolutionary society,” ac cording to Cecilia. Diagnosed as HIV-positive, Nicolás is sent to one of Cuba’s AIDS sanitariums, where the government has con troversially quarantined those with the illness. After Nicolás’ death, Rafa grows closer to Renato, who is also gay and positive. When Renato disappears from the sanitarium, Rafa and Steffan, a German tourist that he and Renato picked up (who may be a spy for the Cuban government) go searching for him. Together they encounter “Los Injected Ones,” a band of coun terrevolutionaries who plan to topple the government and scare away tourists by injecting themselves and others with HIV-pos itive blood: “It had been happening on the Island almost from the day the first sanitarium opened, he said, with so many of the young men, almost never women, injecting themselves with in fected blood, because it was an act of rebellion, because they wanted to get some of the conveniences offered in the sidatorio [AIDS clinic] that were so lacking on the rest of the Island.”

The G & LR

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