What was it like for lesbians in the McCarthy era? This was a time period of great social unrest, of racial stress and extreme inequality, plus the psychotic ever-present fear of the Russians. The government and the military were always ready for an attack, with layers of defense strategies laid out. Often they employed the most educated and intelligent minds in many fields, especially science. Those who worked in anything related to the government were heavily screened to make sure they were not connected to anything that could be seen as a threat, such as socialism, communism, homosexuality, or progressive thinking in general.
In her book, "A Thin Bright Line," Lucy Jane Bledsoe constructs an entire life for a woman who is a lesbian and a very gifted intellectual, who contributes greatly to the production of scientific writings about polar ice. She is the editor who makes sense of the scientific jumble of data that is given to her. And she convinces the military to pay attention to the study of this landscape. These studies prove to later serve as the basis of our climate research and realization of the need to protect our Earth.
The scientific backdrop of the novel is intriguing and fixes Lucybelle, the protagonist, to a career and a location that is necessary to understand her life. She was a lesbian who had a highly guarded private life and never married. Her life was filled with secrets, but she is remembered as a warm and kind person. Her death is a tragedy which is revealed in the introduction to the novel. The reader spends the entire read falling in love with this character, remembering that she does not survive, but hoping that she finds happiness first. The novel is at times haunting, and our brave character confronts the uncertainty, threats and maliciousness with a stern jaw and a pure heart.
Her small town Southern Christian family is protected from her life, yet they know at the same time. She keeps her life in New York and later in Chicago. Her niece is named for her and she is the author of this novel, desiring desperately to know the woman for whom she is named and to understand the tragedy of her death. This book is such a refreshing read, enticing because of its base in the life a women who truly lived. I found myself angry at her for allowing another to use her, then proud of her for being so brave, then amazed at her for seducing so many women in a time of secret affairs for lesbians.
Her love of a black women is truly excruciating in the time of the Civil Rights Movement and the manner in which she really cannot be the lover of this woman and cannot be accepted into her circles of activism. She is blackmailed multiple times, but seems not to fear losing her job. The final woman she loves is sure to cause her just as much heartache, but this match is meant to last. And just as the future looks bright for her and she finishes a project that has taken her entire life to complete; something for her, not for science or for the government; her apartment bursts into flames and she is lost forever.
The journey that her niece took to find out about Lucybelle is extraordinary and what she finds out about her aunt shows how similar they are, both lesbians, both scientists, both in love with ice. I am captivated by the glimpse into the past and into the lifestyle of lesbians in the horrific and unequal times of the Cold War and the McCarthy Era.
