From teen pregnancy and gay sexuality to Communism and disability, the startling secrets that families kept during the Cold War era 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. Keeping Family Secrets uncovers hidden stories of same-sex attraction among boys, unwed pregnancies among teenage girls, the institutionalization of children with mental and physical disabilities, participation in left-wing political activities, adoption, and Jewish ancestry. The members of ordinary families kept these issues secret to hide the disconnect between the reality of their own family and the prevailing ideals of what a family should be. Personal accounts reveal the costs associated with keeping family secrets, as family members lie, hurl epithets, inflict abuse, and even deny family membership to protect themselves from the shame and danger of public knowledge. Keeping Family Secrets sheds light not only on decades-old secrets but pushes us to confront what secrets our families keep today.
Margaret K. Nelson is A. Barton Hepburn Professor of Sociology at Middlebury College. She is the author of Like Family: Narratives of Fictive Kinship and co-author of Random Families: Genetic Strangers, Sperm Donor Siblings, and the Creation of New Kin.
"This is an outstanding book. Nelson is a terrific writer, she highlights the difficult and painful processes entailed in keeping different kinds of family secrets....this book will make a big splash." * Jennifer L. Pierce, co-author of Telling Stories: The Use of Personal Narratives in the Social Sciences and History * "This highly original book uses memoirs as a window into the ways that families are both constructed and disassembled. Nelson traffics in contradictions, which makes her analysis all the more complex and interesting." * Karen V. Hansen, author of Encounter on the Great Plains: Scandinavian Settlers and the Dispossession of Dakota Indians, 1890-1930 *
