***We interrupt this blog hiatus to bring you the following review***
BEYOND THE MIRACLE WORKER:The Remarkable Life of Anne Sullivan Macy
and Her Extraordinary Friendship with Helen Keller
by Kim E. Nielsen
(Beacon Press)
Maybe it seems counter-intuitive to write a solo biography of Anne Sullivan Macy -- who would have heard of her if not for Helen Keller, right? Even for someone who's as nutzoid for Annie as I am, it's odd at first to read a biography in which Helen Keller gets so obviously sidelined. However, much as I value Joseph Lash's dual biography, Helen and Teacher, and as much as the two women's lives were intertwined, reading Nielsen's solo examination of Annie reveals just how much of a distraction keeping up with Helen Keller creates for those of us interested the intricacies of Annie Sullivan.
Without the focus constantly swinging toward the details of Helen's existence, vital elements like Annie's disabilities and mercurial personality virtually become characters in their own right. In fact, Nielsen shows that Annie's wavering eyesight, chronic pain, recurring illnesses, and lifelong bouts of melancholy were more debilitating than Helen's blindness and deafness -- though no one who spent 40-odd years standing next to a deaf-blind icon would dare draw attention to that fact. Not even saucy Annie Sullivan.
While many biographers tend to frame the hardships in Annie's early life as a rags-to-riches buildup to her successes as Helen Keller's famous teacher, Nielsen details the lingering effects of Annie's childhood traumas on her adult relationships and behavior. The truth of the matter is that Annie Sullivan was damaged goods, and even the salve of Helen's decades-long friendship never fully closed those wounds. No matter how much Helen loved and venerated her, Anne Sullivan Macy was not an easy woman to live with. Fortunately for the rest of us, all the extremes that made her such a trial and a delight make for a fascinating read under Nielsen's steady gaze.
***************
Addendum:
I am vicariously incensed with Publisher's Weekly for referring to this book as "lightly fictionalized autobiography." In fact, NONE of Nielsen's writing in this biography can be characterized in any way as fictionalized. On the contrary, Nielsen uses Anne Sullivan Macy's own lightly fictionalized autobiographical writings as a source for her work, but clearly indicates between documented facts and the autobiographical stories of 'Johannah [Annie] and Jimmie Dunnivan' culled from Macy's unpublished memoirs. *humpf*
