This compelling volume offers the first full portrait of the life
and work of writer Lillian Smith (1897-1966), the foremost southern
white liberal of the mid-twentieth century. Smith devoted her life
to lifting the veil of southern self-deception about race, class,
gender, and sexuality. Her books, essays, and especially her
letters explored the ways in which the South's attitudes and
institutions perpetuated a dehumanizing experience for all its
people--white and black, male and female, rich and poor. Her
best-known books are
Strange Fruit (1944), a bestselling
interracial love story that brought her international acclaim; and
Killers of the Dream (1949), an autobiographical critique of
southern race relations that angered many southerners, including
powerful moderates. Subsequently, Smith was effectively silenced as
a writer. Rose Gladney has selected 145 of Smith's 1500 extant
letters for this volume. Arranged chronologically and annotated,
they present a complete picture of Smith as a committed artist and
reveal the burden of her struggles as a woman, including her
lesbian relationship with Paula Snelling. Gladney argues that this
triple isolation--as woman, lesbian, and artist--from mainstream
southern culture permitted Smith to see and to expose southern
prejudices with absolute clarity.