Something for All of Us

“For all of us;” so goes the dedication of one of the best books written by Nancy Garden, Annie on My Mind. Some might think that “all” refers to just a small portion of people, only teens, or homosexuals, or Americans. However, anyone can relate to a story of true love, of the discrimination faced by courageous people, and of the oftentimes thin line between what is right and what is wrong. Annie on My Mind tells just that kind of story, examining the feelings any person can feel, no matter what their age, sexual orientation, or nationality is. Therefore, in its simple dedication, “for all of us,” the book draws all of the population into its amazing story of two girls meeting each other, falling in love, and surviving the opposition of the society as well as the uncertainty in their own hearts, to be reunited once again in the end.

Annie on My Mind is written from the point of view of Liza Winthrop, who looks in retrospect at the events of her senior year in high school, when she met and fell in love with Annie Kenyon. From time to time, the setting changes to Liza’s present, giving her a chance to examine her feelings from the looking backward perspective and allowing for occasional foreshadowing. I personally enjoy getting hints of what will happen later on in the book, and Nancy Garden provides them quite generously. A great example of her foreshadowing would be Liza’s thoughts, “But, oh, God, neither of us had any way of knowing that I would do something much, much worse – at least in the eyes of the school and my parents, and probably a whole lot of other people, too, if they’d known about it.”

Liza and Annie first meet at the Metropolitan Museum, where Liza goes, trying to come up with ideas for her solar house senior project. The two girls soon become fast friends. However, their feelings toward each other transcend simple friendship from the very beginning. Their mutual attraction can be derived from the quotes such as: “’But you’re…’ I stopped, realizing I was about to say beautiful – surprised at thinking it, and confused again.”

About the same time, Sally Jarrell, one of Liza’s school friends, opens an ear-piercing clinic in the school, causing ear infections in a lot of students, including the daughter of the publicity chairman, whom the headmistress, Mrs. Poindexter, has hired to promote her beloved Foster Academy. The private school is in serious financial trouble, and the ear-piercing incident, if left unpunished, would jeopardize the fund-raising campaign the Board of Trustees has organized. Liza gets suspended along with Sally and almost loses her position as the academy’s Student Council President, charged with disobedience of the reporting rule, which would require her to turn Sally in for causing harm to other students, however unintentional that harm is. Throughout the book, Nancy Garden draws a parallel between the ear-piercing incident and the situation Liza finds herself in later. The theme of morality, a theme appearing in all the other gay books written by the author, is explored in both cases. For example, Liza muses,

And doesn’t immorality mostly have to do with hurting people – if Sally had pierced people’s ears against their will, that would have been immoral, it seems to me, but doing it the way she did was just plain foolish. Using Ms. Stevenson’s and Ms. Widmer’s house without permission – that hurt them and was immoral as well as sneaky – but […] what we used the house for – was that immoral, too? I’ve been saying yes, so far, because of the hurt it caused…

Liza realizes her feelings for Annie after the two girls kiss each other at the end of the Thanksgiving vacation, and the rest of the winter is spent exploring their love and the newfound fear of physical attraction as oppose to an emotional one. However, it is much easier for Liza not to think about her sexual orientation rather than accept it. Throughout the book she appears to be in the state of denial, dating Annie, but still not quite willing to live with the label of being gay. In the beginning, she takes the first steps towards coming to terms with her sexuality by trying to analyze the situation and thinking it over, “It is true I’d never consciously thought about being gay. But it also seemed true that if I were, that might pull together not only what had been happening between me and Annie all along and how I felt about her, but also a lot of things in my life before I’d known her.” However, later on Liza admits, “Look, maybe I don’t want to tell them [her family] till I’m really sure. That I’m gay, I mean.”

By the time the spring comes, Liza is still reluctant to accept her sexuality, but her relationship with Annie gradually becomes more and more intense. The fear of physical attraction, expressed by Liza’s moving away every time her girlfriend wants to touch her, forms a real barrier between the two of them to the point that they almost break up. The situation resolves itself when the girls become able to talk openly about their feelings and fears after the worst of their arguments, and soon an opportunity to be alone with each other presents itself. Mrs. Poindexter organizes a special student council meeting, but since the Foster Academy’s Parlor, where the meetings usually take place, is occupied by the fund-raising campaign leaders, the headmistress convinces Ms. Stevenson, the faculty advisor of the student council, to hold it in her house, where she lives together with Ms. Widmer. When during this meeting, Liza finds out that Ms. Stevenson and Ms. Widmer are looking for someone to feed their two cats while they are away on the spring break, she volunteers her help.

During the spring break, Liza and Annie, using Nancy Garden’s words, “were practically living in the house.” Consequently, eventually they come to the realization that Ms. Stevenson and Ms. Widmer are lesbians, too. This is the part of the book that I find the least believable – that Liza does not even suspect her teachers’ homosexuality although she must have known them for a very long time, since Foster Academy is not all that large. Even Annie, who has never met them, says, “From everything you told me, I – well, I wondered.” It isn’t that hard to guess about Ms. Stevenson’s and Ms. Widmer’s sexuality even from the single fact that the two of them live together. Furthermore, when Liza comes to that special council meeting and the two teachers show her around the house, the author gives little hints about their relationship. For example, she writes, It seemed to me that they’d probably been living together for quite a long time. They seemed to own everything jointly […]. And they seemed so comfortable with each other […]. In their house they were like a couple of old shoes, each with its own special lumps and bumps and cracks, but nonetheless a pair that fit with ease into the same shoe box. On the other hand, I suppose Nancy Garden could not have written it any other way if she wanted to prove that the teachers’ sexual orientation has no effect on that of their student. If the readers assumed that effect to be existent, then the point of the pure love between Liza and Annie that the author tries to convey would have been diminished. Some credibility thus had to be sacrificed on the altar of the moral of the story.

The climax of the plot comes when Ms. Baxter, the headmistress’s administrative assistant, who just so happens to be Ms. Stevenson’s and Ms. Widmer’s neighbor, together with Sally Jarrell, discovers Annie and Liza making love. Ms. Baxter does not hesitate before informing Mrs. Poindexter about this incident, and Mrs. Poindexter, worrying as usual about the publicity it would draw to the fund-raising campaign, suspends not only Liza, but also Ms. Stevenson and Ms. Widmer although neither of the two teachers has any idea of what was going on in their house during their absence. In my personal opinion, Ms. Baxter, while playing a less important role in the story than Mrs. Poindexter, is actually more evil than her boss. Mrs. Poindexter does what she does out of her “love for Foster, which was considerable,” but Ms. Baxter does what she does out of her own spite intermixed with religious beliefs in her righteousness.

The headmistress proceeds to call a special meeting of the Board of Trustees, setting up a hearing that very closely resembles a court trial. Her basic goal seems to be to get Liza expelled and Ms. Stevenson and Ms. Widmer fired from Foster Academy. That hearing is probably the most unfair thing that could possibly happen. Not only does such a hearing leave Liza with psychological trauma of having her feelings examined by people such as Mrs. Poindexter and Ms. Baxter, who are openly hostile to her situation so that “it was as if everyone were assuming that love had nothing to do with any of this, that it was just ‘an indulgence of carnal appetites’ – I think Ms. Baxter actually used those words,” but the decision of the trustees gives the story a much more unfair twist. Basically, no measures are taken against Liza herself, but Ms. Stevenson and Ms. Widmer are both fired. As Sally, who testifies against them at the hearing and represents the point of view the Board of Trustees members seem to hold, explains later, “The thing is – well, think of the influence teachers have.[…] Oh, Liza, think of yourself, think of how influenced you were by them!” It is very sadly ironic that the punishment falls upon the shoulders of two people who really haven’t done anything wrong – and the author does make a point of showing how innocent Ms. Stevenson and Ms. Widmer are in this story. Liza writes later in her unsent letter to Annie, Annie, if I’d been at their part of the hearing, I could have told the truth. I probably could have saved them – well, maybe saved them – if I’d been there. And even at my own hearing I might have been able to help them; I could have said – I wanted to say – that they’d had no influence, that I’d have been gay anyway…

This situation brings the readers back to the main theme of the story. Is something immoral if it hurts other people even if that hurt is unintentional? Neither Ms. Stevenson nor Ms. Widmer seem to blame Liza and Annie in the end; Ms. Widmer even tells the story of how she almost left Ms. Stevenson after someone in WAC (Women’s Army Corps) had found the letter she had written to her girlfriend. “’It took me a couple of years to realize,’ said Ms. Widmer, ‘that it wasn’t my fault – that it wasn’t my homosexuality that had gotten Isabelle [Ms. Stevenson] discharged [from the military], it was what people wrongly made of it.’” The author seems to be trying to convey to her readers the same moral, that Liza and Annie should not be the ones to blame for the teachers’ losing their jobs. However, I don’t agree with that, and neither does Liza, who feeling enormous guilt, stops writing to Annie after the two girls leave New York City for MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) and Berkeley, respectively. Liza’s guilt can be seen in the passage:

I read somewhere the other day that love is good as long as it’s honest and unselfish and hurts no one. That people’s biological sex doesn’t matter when it comes to love; that there have always been gay people; that there are even some gay animals and many bisexual ones; that other societies have accepted and do accept gays – so maybe our society is backward. My mind believes that, Annie, and I can accept most of it with my heart, too, except I keep stumbling on just one statement: as long as it hurts no one.

Nancy Garden, however, through Ms. Stevenson and Ms. Widmer, puts the blame for the teachers’ being fired on the homophobic society, rather than on Liza and Annie, who really should not have used the house the way they did, no matter what the circumstances. Ms. Stevenson’s anger at the moment when she finds out about the incident and cries out, “You are not […] a bit like us. Even in our worst times, I don’t think we would ever, ever have betrayed anyone’s trust, not like this – not in a way that would give a – a person like Miranda Baxter license to – to…,” ameliorates later on in the book, and her final words to Liza and Annie are, “Don’t let ignorance win . […] Let love.” Furthermore, Liza seems unable to communicate with Annie until she forgives herself and until she finally really comes to terms with her sexuality.

Liza is confused about her sexual identity from the very beginning. Even while dating Annie, she is still unsure about being gay, living in a sort of denial. Before Liza can renew her relationship with her girlfriend, however, she must accept her homosexuality. Her final step toward acceptance is seen from her thoughts after the six months of not seeing Annie,

If I hadn’t been gay, […] if nothing had happened in that house, in that bedroom… But dammit, […] you are gay, Liza, and something did happen in that house, and it happened because you love Annie in ways you wouldn’t if you weren’t gay. Liza, Liza Winthrop, you are gay. Go on from that, Liza. […] Climb that last mountain…

Furthermore, Nancy Garden again uses Ms. Widmer to convey to the readers that this acceptance of sexuality is in fact essential for the forgiveness in this case. The English teacher says, referring to the story of Ms. Stevenson’s discharge from the military, “I think […] that I had to accept I was gay before I could realize that it wasn’t my fault about the discharge. […] That’s why I like that quote so much, the one about the truth making one free. It does, you know, whatever that truth is.” Consequently, in the very end, when Liza finally works up the courage to call Annie on the phone, she doesn’t neglect mentioning the truth, which she finally accepts, in the last words of the book,

“Annie, Ms. Widmer was right. Remember – about the truth making one free? Annie – I’m free now. I love you. I love you so much!” And in near whisper: “I love you, too, Liza. Oh, God, I love you, too!”

The importance of truth seems to be another theme of the book. As Ms. Widmer wisely notices, it’s the truth, the knowledge of oneself, that gives one the psychological strength and self-esteem to overcome the obstacles the world throws in one’s way. However, this theme is somewhat diminished by the fact that Liza lies to her family about sleeping with Annie. Actually, that lie along with the characters’ quite real personalities is what makes this book so believable (not counting Liza’s complete obliviousness towards her teachers’ sexuality, that is.) It would have been highly unlikely for the girl to be able to come out so easily after half a year of being in the closet. As Liza notices, “she [her mother] was making it impossible, impossible for me to tell the truth.” Actually, Nancy Garden does a masterful job in describing Liza’s parents’ reaction to their daughter’s situation. Both Mr. and Mrs. Winthrop are incredibly supportive, but at the same time very confused in battling their own homophobia. Their state of mind can be seen from Mr. Winthrop’s words, “Liza, damn it, I always thought I was – well, okay about things like homosexuality. But now when I find out that my own daughter might be…” The parents’ confusion most of all is what, in my mind, makes them so incredibly real.

Liza and Annie are very real as well. They are not some sort of a cultural stereotype of two homosexuals or two lovebirds, who live and breath together. They are two separate and real individuals; with their own past, their own personalities, their own interests. As any two people, Liza and Annie have their disagreements, but they are able to work through them, and their love remains strong even after six months of not seeing each other.

The entire book definitely does have as one of its morals the fact that discrimination against homosexuals is wrong, although I would disagree with the opinion of the reviewers described by Ms. Garden in one of her interviews, where she says, “In my first attempts at writing a gay book, I tended to get up on my soapbox and preach instead of telling a story. I think I’m better now at curbing my soapboxing, although reviewers of my gay books sometimes speak of my ‘agenda’ in a somewhat disparaging way.” First of all, it would have seemed unnatural if a book about two girls loving each other and written from the point of view of one of them, did not show how wrong the discrimination is. It is quite obvious that neither Annie nor Liza would support or stay neutral toward such prejudice. A good book is supposed to leave the readers with some sort of a moral, and agenda isn’t necessarily the right word for it. Secondly, although the call for toleration of homosexuals certainly does exist in the book, it is not what draws the reader into the storyline. Only an essay can exist on the simple basis of opinion and its proof; a novel should arrive at its moral (if it has one, that is) through characterization and plot, both of which are necessary for a good story. Annie on My Mind encompasses both of these essentials, placing real characters in the real problematic situations. The storyline all by itself, even if the moral is set aside, is quite interesting.

Although the book is fictional, Nancy Garden does include bits and pieces of her own biographical information here and there. Ms. Stevenson’s and Ms. Widmer’s story about their past and their parents prohibiting them to see each other, for example, resembles those of Ms. Garden and her partner, Sandra Scott. In fact, the entire idea of them being two teachers and working together in a private school in New York City is very similar to the time in the author’s life when she was reunited with her girlfriend. Moreover, just as in Ms. Garden’s other book, Lark in the Morning, the two teen lesbian characters in Annie on My Mind are separated, at least geographically speaking, for the time of their college studies; Annie goes to Berkeley in California while Liza moves to Massachusetts, where MIT is located. Similarly, Nancy Garden and Sandra Scott were separated when they were in college, but for a different reason; Ms. Scott actually broke up with Ms. Garden due to the difficulties of their secret, long distance relationship. The author’s familiarity with New York City, where the story takes place, also adds a lot to the believability of the book. Since Ms. Garden had lived in NYC for quite a long time, her descriptions of the city are very real, and the scene when Annie and Liza first meet each other can be actually used as a great guide in the Metropolitan Museum.

Annie on My Mind tells a story of two girls loving each other despite all the problems their family and friends have with their love. The book was first published in 1982, but its ideas are very relevant even now, twenty years later. Homophobia is still incredibly strong in the American society, and, as with every form of discrimination, it has its roots in ignorance. Although I do understand that not all of my classmates would want to read a book with a lesbian theme, such books are extremely important. They hold the power to educate as well as entertain people. As the dedication of Annie on My Mind reads, I would recommend this novel “for all of us.” In the end of the book Ms. Stevenson tells Liza and Annie, “There are a lot of unfair things in this world, and gay people certainly come in for their share of them – but so do lots of other people, and besides, it doesn’t really matter. What matters is the truth of loving, of two people finding each other. That’s what’s important, and don’t you forget it.” I think any book that can teach such a wonderful moral is worth reading and can be seen as the first step in the fight against the discrimination.