This
is the thirty-eighth post in a series highlighting the best gay and
lesbian authors from the 20th century (with a few before and after that
period) who have recorded in fiction, and nonfiction, the history of gay
people telling what life is, and was, during an important time of
history.

Shockley, Ann Allen (b. 1927)

Popular
short story writer and novelist, as well as librarian, critic, and
editor, Ann Allen Shockley treats both interracial and lesbian
experiences.
Shockley was born June 21, 1927, in Louisville, Kentucky, the daughter
of social workers Bessie Lucas and Henry Allen. She received her B.A. in
1948 from Fisk University, where she worked for many years as
archivist, librarian, and professor, and her M.S.L.S. in 1959 from
Western Reserve, now Case Western Reserve. In 1949, she married teacher
William Shockley, whom she later divorced.




She is best known for her ground-breaking lesbian fiction: Loving Her
(1974) is arguably the first novel to offer a black lesbian as its
primary character.
Loving Her centers on an interracial relationship between Renay, who is
black, and Terry, who is white, and equates that relationship with a
journey into self-discovery. A novel of development, Loving Her moves
inward. It opens with the breakup of Renay's marriage and subsequently
focuses on her inner awakening: the recovery of her dream of becoming an
accomplished pianist and the discovery of her lesbianism.
Reflecting a sensibility that predates the black, lesbian, and women's
liberation movements, Renay's empowering bond with Terry frames racial
difference as a secondary issue: a skin-deep phenomenon within the
relationship, a vehicle for homophobia without. In a reworking of The
Well of Loneliness, with which it invites comparison, Loving Her casts
lesbianism as the nourisher, and heterosexuality as the violator of
female, familial, and racial integrity.
Shockley, who has named herself a "social[ly] conscious writer," extends
her fictional treatment of interracial and lesbian experiences with her
collection of short stories, The Black and White of It (1980), which
celebrates the gains women have made in the wake of racial and sexual
oppression.
In "A Birthday Remembered," Tobie, the biological daughter of the
protagonist's deceased lover, embodies those gains. She is a confident,
well-adjusted adolescent who considers "Aunt El" family, recognizes the
importance of personal independence and economic self-reliance, and
identifies her deceased mother's relationship as having been loving,
legitimate, and a model to emulate.
Shockley's stories are scenarios of survival much more than of living.
In "One More Saturday Night Around," principal character Marcia endures
stolen moments in motel rooms with her former college lover, now
married. Far from ideal, these trysts represent a determination and
resourcefulness complicated by tangible obstacles.
Shockley consistently explores possibilities for social transformation
across sexual and racial divides. Challenging the homophobia that,
according to her 1979 essay "The Black Lesbian in American Literature:
An Overview," pervades the black community, her second novel, Say Jesus
and Come to Me (1982), situates its lesbian love story amid feminist
meetings and religious revivals. The juxtaposition of evangelicalism and
lesbianism is surprising and subversive.
Shockley's works offer complex, wide-ranging portrayals of lesbian
experience. Though at times character and plot development are
inconsistent, and though awkward phrasings tend to reduce descriptions
of lovemaking to hilarious detail, her fiction constitutes a brave
contribution to lesbian literature.
Margaret Soenser Breen
Elsa A. Bruguier