No Pictures in My Grave by Susan Caperna Lloyd (review)

64 WesternAmerican Literature One value of this collection is its effort to consider the West’s future by connecting through the present to its historical past, a past that includes errors, injustices, outrages as well as courage, strength and wisdom. It does not cel­ ebrate—or lament—what has already happened, so much as envision whatwill/ should happen in the future. As Patricia Limerick observes, the title implies that, “up to this point, the scenery has considerably outscored the society,”but symposia like these offer hope for the future. The views expressed range the spectrum. Daniel Kemmis, mayor of Missoula, advocates turning federal lands over to local governments, an idea more favored by developers than conservationists. William Kittredge gives us the history of his family’s misguided, ultimately destructive efforts to “use”land they did not understand. Philip Burgess pleads for realization that economic and environmental concerns coincide in important ways. Sally Fairfax, strenu­ ously iconoclastic, denies the existence of the West as “a discrete political or cultural identity,”and, herself using such terms as “the new kid on the block” and “whole nine yards,” sneers at “sustainable agriculture” as a “buzzword.” John Echohawk briefly contradicts all that Fairfax says. Wallace Stegner’s “Geography of Hope”sums up the thrust of this collec­ tion. The West provides a geography of hope, but we have failed to meet those hopes. Stegner concludes with Satan’s injunction, in Mark Twain’s The Mysteri­ ous Stranger, “Dream other dreams, and better.” This book can help us imagine what those other dreams should be. PAUL T. BRYANT Radford University No Pictures in My Grave. By Susan Caperna Lloyd. (San Francisco: Mercury House, 1992. 189 pages, $12.95.) Male and female responses to underworld experiences, as metaphor or as Jungian archetype, vary widely, to include, as Christine Downing has succinctly put it, suggestions “of womb rather than tomb.” Susan Caperna Lloyd has written a fascinating account of her explorations around the nether regions. Discovering a demonstrably archetypal similarity between photographs of her immigrant Italian grandmother, a statue of the Black Madonna of Tindari, and ancient figurines of the Greek goddess Demeter, this Oregonian writer narrates a search for her own roots, concentrating on the annual processions of Sicilian Easter Week, which still show evidence of worship of Demeter as goddess of fertility, even in the guise of the sorrowing Christian Madonna. While viewing centuries-old traditions and customs, we watch a twentiethcentury writer, journalist, photographer, wife, and mother struggling simulta­ neously to find her professional and family identity in her roots in these ancient Reviews 65 rituals, a search to connect not only with her own inner strengths and powers but with those she recalls in childhood memories of her grandmother. The result is an unusual illustration of the relationship of a specific indi­ vidual to mythology. This true story moves through a series of montage-like adventures with archetypal images and events rising and falling through centu­ ries of human behavior, as if our everyday linear time no longer existed: a distraught madonna in a play in Marsala, wailing loudly and waving her hands in the air, calls to life the stereotypical bereaved Demeter, whose daughter, Persephone, was abducted by the lustful god of the underworld, Pluto, as he swept her offin his chariot. Shortly after, Lloyd relates how she escapes from the Fiat of an amorous young Italian, intent on her seduction. As the story progresses, both the author and the reader seem to move through layer upon layer and layer of human behavior, distributed over centuries. What the reader begins to realize (sooner perhaps than the author herself) is that Susan Lloyd is looking for something deeper than family, deeper than her Christianity, deeper than the ancient Madonna Addolorata, and deeper even than the ancient tales of sorrowing Demeter and her lost child. Slowly we comprehend that Susan Lloyd is looking for something deep, deep within herself. That she finds it—and in a truly unorthodox but dramatically commu­ nicable form—creates a thrilling conclusion for author and reader alike. CHARLES L. ADAMS University ofNevada, Las Vegas Where the Bluebird Sings to the Lemonade Springs: Living and Writing in the West. By...