Portland author Judith Barrington’s just-published collection of 14 linked memoirs, Virginia’s Apple, can be explored as individual essays but is far more satisfactory experienced as one long volume, inviting the reader to a telling of her truths. Even the dedication, a simple “For Ruth” inscribed in the center of the page, marks a prelude to the life the reader is about to enter.
“Whatever I thought — and I didn’t think about it for more than a second — I was well past resisting the mysterious promise of Wales,” reads the collection’s third chapter, Nicolette. “That night, I drove to Llandyssil, straight through the bitter January darkness, with Nicolette dozing in the passenger seat. What would have happened, I will wonder over the years, if I had decided, instead, to put her back on the train and wave her out of my life?”
This air of mystery, intrigue, and languid sensuality — an introspective woman questioning her actions while giving in to her deepest instincts — runs through the work. From the misguided innocence of childhood to her relationship with her siblings, her parents’ sudden deaths, her sexual awakening, furtive love affairs, navigating writing, and the experience of being a stranger in a new land, Barrington holds back few intimate details. The result is a lightly erotic and wind-tousled book.
In Virginia’s Apple, the world is unfurled as an offering, inviting readers to experience the ‘70s “breaking open,” an Oklahoma sunrise, a sexual relationship formed between niece and aunt-by-marriage, an unsound marriage, winter days of pounding rain, an individual’s maturation, the birth of a poet.
Barrington, 80, was born in Brighton, England, and lived in London and Spain before making her way in 1976 to Portland, a place she hadn’t heard of until she arrived in the United States with a lover — an experience chronicled in Virginia’s Apple. She first became known for her poetry collections Trying to Be an Honest Woman (1985) and History and Geography (1989). Her 1997 release, Writing the Memoir: From Truth to Art, is used in writing classes nationwide. In 2000, her first memoir, Livesaving, chronicled the death of her parents in the 1963 Lakonia ship fire that claimed 128 lives and the aftermath of dealing with the tragedy. Portland author Ursula K. LeGuin said about Lifesaving: “I think a great many people will find it speaks to them about the hard places and the hard choices, while they love it for its sunlit picture of a woman young, wild, and wildly alive.”
Four of Barrington’s books have been Oregon Book Award finalists. Other honors include the Lambda Book Award, PEN/Martha Albrand Award, Sonora Review Annual Nonfiction Award, and the Gregory O’Donoghue International Poetry Prize. She was short-listed in 2003 for Writer of the Year Award in London. With her partner, Ruth Gundle, she received the 1997 Stewart H. Holbrook Award for outstanding contributions to Oregon’s literary life.
Inseparable from the narrative journey in Virginia’s Apple is a radical feminist undertone, chronicled by Barrington’s exploration of London’s underground women’s groups and her camaraderie and relationships with women — eventually empowering her to come out as lesbian and embrace queer culture and community. She later helped promote literary opportunities for women in the Northwest and internationally, including founding, with Gundle, the Flight of the Mind Writing Workshops, which took place from 1983 to 2000 along the McKenzie River.
Virginia’s Apple is a captivating story, made all the more intriguing by its roots in actual events. There is a subtlety in the telling that leaves no doubt of honesty in the reader’s mind, and while each piece is filled with life lessons and anecdotes, they are not overt — and left for the reader to deliciously decipher. The details of events do not, however, overshadow the tender beauty of Barrington’s poetic prose. From the dim London flat to vibrant Spain to the dewy, picturesque English village of Bury, Barrington’s landscapes sing and ring out with crystal clear, descriptive imagery.
“Exhausted, I sank into a chaise lounge in the conservatory, where tentative sunlight was beginning to warm the damp air, and fell fast asleep. When I opened my eyes, it was dusk and I could hear doves calling from the dovecot and our hostess pottering around the kitchen,” reads an ending passage from the titularly titled section, Virginia’s Apple. “Although nothing in my life had exactly resembled this scene with its whiff of a fairy tale, it felt familiar to have a mother on loan. What a relief it was to know that someone, even a stranger, was taking care of us for a couple of days. All too soon we’d have only our stubbornness and our volatile love for each other to rely on when things got tough.”
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Barrington will give a free reading from Virginia’s Apple at 4 p.m. Sunday, Oct. 20 at Up Up Books in Southeast Portland. She will be joined by Jules Ohman, novelist and coordinator of Literary Arts’ Writers in the Schools program. At 7 p.m. Thursday, Nov. 7, Barrington will appear at Bishop & Wilde bookstore in Northwest Portland.
Amy Leona Havin is a poet, essayist, and arts journalist based in Portland, Oregon. She writes about language arts, dance, and film for Oregon ArtsWatch and is a staff writer with The Oregonian/OregonLive. Her work has been published in San Diego Poetry Annual, HereIn Arts Journal, Humana Obscura, The Chronicle, and others. She has been an artist-in-residence at Disjecta Contemporary Art Center, Archipelago Gallery, and Art/Lab, and was shortlisted for the Bridport International Creative Writing Prize in poetry. Havin holds a Bachelor of Fine Arts from Cornish College of the Arts and is the Artistic Director of Portland-based dance performance company, The Holding Project.
One Response
This is a wonderful review of a wonderful memoir.