Blogging Mary Bowser
July 2, 2019
The Vanishing Black Woman Spy Reappears
Y'know how I wrote a novel imagining the emotional experience of the real-life woman who went from slavery to Civil War spy? Turns out, the truth really is stranger than fiction. And it takes longer to eke out, too.
A few months ago, I discovered the only known surviving correspondence between Mary "Not Really Bowser" and Bet Van Lew, the white woman who was her owner, then her participant in the pro-Union spy ring in the Confederate capital. Mary wrote it five years after the war ended. (If you think Ta-Nehisi Coates made a strong case for reparations, just wait until you find out what Mary had to say about trying to survive as an African American in post-bellum America). The letter provided me months of sleuthing to prove its authenticity, leading to lots of other new finds, and to some unbelievable revelations about her life.
The Los Angeles Review of Books published my article about the sleuthing process and what the new letter reveals about this amazing woman. Check it out here: https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/the-vanishing-black-woman-spy-reappears/
And then TIME published my rant about why for the past century plus, even when we think we're "celebrating" her, we keep getting this history wrong. And what that says about race in American but also about lots of other things from climate change to election manipulation. Check it out here: https://time.com/5609045/misremembering-mary-bowser/
(If you like those articles, please forward them and post them on social media and send a semaphore signal recommending them. There is so much misinformation about her circulated that I need your help getting the word out.)
And I am still researching. Because now that I know where to look for her, I'm learning she did yet more amazing things to protest racism and sexism and just general baloney as it was then and remains now.
So it seems I am writing a new book that is not fiction and is about the same person as my novel. Am I the first author to do that? Maybe. But you know, there really are somethings you just can't make up.
A few months ago, I discovered the only known surviving correspondence between Mary "Not Really Bowser" and Bet Van Lew, the white woman who was her owner, then her participant in the pro-Union spy ring in the Confederate capital. Mary wrote it five years after the war ended. (If you think Ta-Nehisi Coates made a strong case for reparations, just wait until you find out what Mary had to say about trying to survive as an African American in post-bellum America). The letter provided me months of sleuthing to prove its authenticity, leading to lots of other new finds, and to some unbelievable revelations about her life.
The Los Angeles Review of Books published my article about the sleuthing process and what the new letter reveals about this amazing woman. Check it out here: https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/the-vanishing-black-woman-spy-reappears/
And then TIME published my rant about why for the past century plus, even when we think we're "celebrating" her, we keep getting this history wrong. And what that says about race in American but also about lots of other things from climate change to election manipulation. Check it out here: https://time.com/5609045/misremembering-mary-bowser/
(If you like those articles, please forward them and post them on social media and send a semaphore signal recommending them. There is so much misinformation about her circulated that I need your help getting the word out.)
And I am still researching. Because now that I know where to look for her, I'm learning she did yet more amazing things to protest racism and sexism and just general baloney as it was then and remains now.
So it seems I am writing a new book that is not fiction and is about the same person as my novel. Am I the first author to do that? Maybe. But you know, there really are somethings you just can't make up.
