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A Daring Undertaking
Swinging on the Garden Gate: A Spiritual Memoir
by Elizabeth J. Andrew.
Skinner House Books, 2000. 200 pages.
Reviewed by Anthony F. Chiffolo
What is the purpose of writing a memoir? The reader would expect that the writer’s primary purpose would be to inform others about the details of her life. Certainly this involves a bit of narcissism, for who but the most self-involved would dare to presume that their lives would be of any interest to people other than family members and friends? Yet there is an underlying purpose in documenting one’s life: that the very process of writing a memoir increases self-knowledge and may even bring revelation. Elizabeth J. Andrew seems to have had this second purpose in mind when she wrote Swinging on the Garden Gate: A Spiritual Memoir, for Andrew seems to have only begun the process of understanding and accepting herself as a bisexual woman.
Raised in Tarrytown, New York, Andrew, like many homosexual and bisexual persons, sensed from an early age that she was different from other people. With no role models in her community, however, she thought, hoped, and prayed that her bisexual feelings were only a phase. They were not, and her attempt to suppress her true nature led only to her feeling more and more different. Eventually, she sought spiritual direction, which gave her the strength to begin accepting herself as God had made her and to come out to family members and friends.
Andrew’s feelings and experiences would not strike LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgendered) people as unusual or particularly remarkable; the commonality of LGBT life experiences fosters a strong tradition of story-sharing. And even if the experiences of most LGBT people have not been explicitly spiritual, one might say that all these experiences have been holy -- for all revelation, including self-revelation, can be said to partake of the sacred.
But aside from the grace and beauty of her writing -- her description of her bicycle trip through Wales during a college semester abroad is particularly lyrical and moving -- Andrew’s memoir adds little to a broader understanding of what it really means to be bisexual. She does not explain her experiences in a way that clarifies for the reader what bisexuality means to her and does not address how her bisexual feelings determine her approach to the world. Indeed, the reader might even say that the sexual experiences and emotions she describes seem more passionate when directed toward women than toward men. This leaves the reader with a sense that Andrew has not yet told her story in full truthfulness. This is not a minor point, as many gays and lesbians do not believe that bisexuality actually exists, and the concept itself has served to fragment the LGBT community in a number of places.
At the same time, this memoir is a daring undertaking for the author, for such a public coming out involves many risks and requires much courage. One can only hope that the experience of publishing this memoir will encourage Andrew to be more forthcoming with her readers in her next book.
Anthony F. Chiffolo is the author of 100 Names of Mary: Stories & Prayers, published by St. Anthony Messenger Press. He is managing editor at Fordham University Press and reviews books for WVOX Radio, 1460 AM, in New Rochelle, New York, and for community newsletters. Chiffolo is also the author of Be Mindful of Us: Prayers to the Saints, the An Hour with the Saints series of pamphlets, and other books from Liguori Publications. He lives in Hartsdale, New York.
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