Your Favorites of 2023
Your favorite posts of last year. I thought the list was surprising. Was it surprising to you? — Sallie
Little Brother: A Memoir
“Brava, Sallie Bingham, for an intimate and courageous portrait of the complexities of her family in all its pose, love and need for emotional distractions. This compelling personal story is set against the backdrop of decades of world history, and in part reflects the American character, its values, and thus the consequences. I was totally immersed.”— Joan Brooks Baker, author of The Magnolia Code
“As Sallie Bingham tells it, her brother Jonathan was a deeply sensitive boy and young man who was ravaged by inherited privilege and familial neglect. In this riveting memoir, she searches for the meaning in her little brother’s sad, truncated life. I couldn't put the book down.”— Polly Howells
Readers familiar with Sallie Bingham’s 1989 memoir, Passion and Prejudice, will remember her provocative chronicle of the Bingham family saga, cited by Gloria Steinem as “a major step toward feminist change and democracy.”
In Little Brother, she reflects on just one of her siblings: the youngest son Jonathan and his all-too brief life. The book begins with a count she calls her “dreadful list” of nine close relatives who died by accident, suicide, overdose, exposure to the elements, and electrocution, all before the age of 50. Jonathan was only twenty-two years old when he climbed a pole, hoping to rig up some lighting for a barn party and, by some fluke, grabbed a live wire. But even before his fatal fall to the ground, the boy suffered from insecurity, isolation, and difficulty relating to his large family. Bingham draws from archived material, chief among them the young man’s journal and letters. She writes his short history with obvious affection and tenderness, along with more than a dash of survival guilt. Little Brother is a moving and honest new work.
The Silver Swan: In Search of Doris Duke
“Men who inherit great wealth are respected, but women who do the same are ridiculed. In The Silver Swan, Sallie Bingham rescues Doris Duke from this gendered prison and shows us just how brave, rebellious, and creative this unique woman really was, and how her generosity benefits us to this day.”— Gloria Steinem
“In her fascinating book about tobacco heiress Doris Duke, whose net worth had ballooned to $1.2 billion by her death in 1993, Bingham gets at how inherited wealth liberates women but also burdens them.”— The National Book Review, "5 HOT BOOKS"
“In this illuminating biography, Bingham (The Blue Box) chronicles the life of philanthropist and tobacco heiress Doris Duke (1912–1993)... Bingham is a generous biographer in this exacting, measured work.”— Publishers Weekly
“Bingham adds a trove of new material to the Duke oeuvre, including revealing quotations from letters and details of daily life on Duke’s many estates. ”— The New York Times
Prefer text? Read the transcript.
Sallie Bingham is a writer, teacher, feminist activist, and philanthropist.
Sallie’s first novel was published by Houghton Mifflin in 1961; she has since published six additional novels and the well-known family memoir, Passion and Prejudice (Knopf, 1989). Her latest book, The Silver Swan: In Search of Doris Duke, is now available from Farrar, Straus and Giroux.
She is founder of the Kentucky Foundation for Women, which published The American Voice, and the Sallie Bingham Center for Women’s History and Culture at Duke University.
Sallie's Latest
KFW: Hopscotch House Announcement 2024
I would like to hear a reaction from any woman who has used Hopscotch House in the past. Please leave a message below, on Facebook, or via email....
What Do I Have in Common With Elon Musk?
His suit against OpenAI, just commencing in California, has some similarities with my struggles with what has become of the Kentucky Foundation for Women....
Fading Away
I'm dismayed to see how rapidly the women's movement is fading, eclipsed by monstrous wars but also by young women's failure to engage....
So “They” Let Us Have One Month…
Women's History Month began without much attention and certainly without fanfare on March 1, 2024 and will end in deafening silence on March 31....
The Great I Am
After finding a church where I feel at least to some degree at home and grow to love the Christian ritual… I hit an obstruction....
Pip Is Tired
Pip is full of self-will—one of the reasons we get on so well—and likes to dictate as much of his life as he can....
Letter to the Editor, The Courier-Journal, 2/19/2024
I am writing to protest the just announced sale of Hopscotch House by the Kentucky Foundation for Women....
The Lost Cause
As I begin reading the collection of nineteenth-century Stiles letters that may provide the core of my next book, I'm brought reluctantly to remember two long ago incidents when loneliness pushed me closer to belief....
This Beautiful Weave
It strikes me that I have days like Sunday which seem to be a beautiful weaving of threads: red, blue, and all the other colors of the rainbow....
Little Brother
The Personal Is Political
We may all be susceptible to thinking our “personal” stories are nothing more than personal, forgetting over and over again that, as Gloria Steinem said, “The personal is political.” ...
Montana Was Made for the Wild Man: Women and Bad Boys
We need to feel a connection to the heroic, so often defined as inherently male....
Leaving
Whether I'm leaving on a short trip like this one or a long trip like the one next month, I feel the same mixture of nostalgia and apprehension......
First We Burn
The national news, which almost never recognizes that New Mexico is a state—after all we have only five Congressional delegates—has been pricked into awareness by our five fires, one of ...
Escaping the Labyrinth of Nostalgia
As the first copies of my memoir, Little Brother, begin to circulate, I’m struck by the way some friends have responded to the photograph of Jonathan on the cover....
Getting to YES
Out of the sour ground of NO spring many hopeful sprigs, especially the generous responses to so many of my posts from you....
How Wonderful Is That
In the midst of so much bad news, this astonishing performance of starlings, those little birds many of us have learned to hate, is a reminder of our ability to communicate and cooperate...
Little Brother Comes Home
Jonathan will be back in the place he loved best, and the only place he ever felt he really belonged....
Doris Duke
Margaret in the Wilderness
Surrounded by disasters of every kind, we are seeing the great strengths of our extraordinary adaptability, valued and valuable as it has never been before....
Doris Farewell
Thursday night I was privileged to present a conversation about my book and Doris Duke in one of the huge gilded rooms at Rough Point......
Doris Redux
I'm about to leave New York City in its grey rain for Newport and Rough Point, the big house on Ocean Avenue Doris inherited from her father and that seems to have been closely associated, for her, with her mother....
Margaret in the Wilderness
Surrounded by disasters of every kind, we are seeing the great strengths of our extraordinary adaptability, valued and valuable as it has never been before....
The Silver Swan Sails Again
Due to the generosity of a store here in Santa Fe called Travel Bug, I was able to give a reading from the biography a few days ago to a large and appreciative crowd. ...
Two Women: Margaret and Doris
I've come to believe over the years that there is a core similarity that connects the lives of all women. I think it is our ability to adapt....
Doris Duke: A Lifetime Search for Faith
On Tuesday, March 9, 2021 I presented a talk to The Library Committee of The Church of the Holy Faith in Santa Fe, New Mexico entitled "Doris Duke: A Lifetime Search for Faith."...
Vindication
The Doris Duke Charitable Foundation's grant of 1.6 million dollars to pay for the digitalization of thousands of tape-recorded oral histories of indigenous people has a special meaning for me....
And Now, Margaret Sanger
Yesterday, Planned Parenthood of Greater New York removed the name of Margaret Sanger, "founder of the organization," from its Manhattan clinic because of her "harmful connection to the eugenics movement."...
What We Can’t Say Now
We need to define, and vigorously defend, the line between art and politics....
Writing
Fear of Flying Is Fifty
Jong's courage in going to bat for all of us who couldn't speak up for ourselves is a quality I will always admire....
A Voice Crying in the Wilderness
...Not exactly a wilderness but a great expanse of desert, south of Santa Fe, that goes on for miles and miles to the sprawling town of Alamogordo....
Writing From the Point of View of Others
Ideas are dangerous: it’s of their very nature, and it’s a danger that permeates the world of reading and writing....
Taken by the Shawnee
The design for the cover of my next book, my historical novel, “Taken by the Shawnee” just arrived from my publisher, Turtle Point Press....
The War on Terror Is at Home
When I pass a pretty adobe house on my street walking Pip, a disembodied voice suddenly speaks: "Hi. Your approach is being recorded."...
The <em>Ms.</em> Book
It arrived yesterday, a large, heavy, hardbound anthology of fifty years of writing from Ms....
Email Issues
Friends, due to issues with my email there will be no posts for the indefinite future… I hope to be posting again very soon!...
Writing What You Don’t Know
Writing workshop wisdom used to be write what you know, a doctrine I've found increasingly confining....
Women
Fading Away
I'm dismayed to see how rapidly the women's movement is fading, eclipsed by monstrous wars but also by young women's failure to engage....
So “They” Let Us Have One Month…
Women's History Month began without much attention and certainly without fanfare on March 1, 2024 and will end in deafening silence on March 31....
Women Holding Things
As a worldwide conflagration of violence has broken out, we women are not even holding our own. Our voices and faces no longer appear in the news....
Silver Heads
It is with dismay but not surprise that I read a description of the reaction of two “Silver Heads” to Tracy Emin’s panels on the main doors of the National Portrait Gallery in London....
Second Childhood
We've spent too many words bewailing the sins committed against us in our childhoods, and they were sins, and they had drastic effects, and that matters; but Sunday when I bought this charming "Winter Fairy" at my church's St. Nicholas Bazaar, I decided it's high time to enter into my second childhood......
Two Ways to Help
I feel as helpless and depressed as many of us do, watching the endless destruction wrought by the wars we largely finance with our tax dollars....
Winter at Wolf Pen Farm
It was never my intention to create a private estate, and it gives me great satisfaction to know that River Fields organizes seasonal wildflower walks at the farm, and that a generation of children is growing up in my three rental houses....
Let Us Now Praise Famous Men?
Many who hear or read the phrase seize on its Biblical meaning which was literal and remains literal today, and as yet no one has suggested attempting to replace the book with Let Us Now Praise Famous Women....
The Price of Fear
A few days ago, my dog Pip was attacked as he lay sleeping on my patio here in the mountains, bitten savagely in three places....
New Mexico
What Do I Have in Common With Elon Musk?
His suit against OpenAI, just commencing in California, has some similarities with my struggles with what has become of the Kentucky Foundation for Women....
Pip Is Tired
Pip is full of self-will—one of the reasons we get on so well—and likes to dictate as much of his life as he can....
This Beautiful Weave
It strikes me that I have days like Sunday which seem to be a beautiful weaving of threads: red, blue, and all the other colors of the rainbow....
A Drop of Pure Joy
A few weeks ago, my beloved dance studio threw its bi-annual Showcase, an afternoon of dance performances by students and teachers for our own pleasure and satisfaction after a lot of hard work and many lessons....
Death of a Pack Rat
I read somewhere that the world is divided between those who only care about family and friends and those whose empathy extends to include people far away, strangers, never to be included in the near and dear....
The Feast of Saint Stephen
As the old song says, "Ye who now do bless the poor/Shall yourselves find blessing."...
Christmas Miracle: Pip Is Completely Recovered!
It took six weeks and three trips to the vet after his savage attack but we just took the first hike since that happened......
Second Childhood
We've spent too many words bewailing the sins committed against us in our childhoods, and they were sins, and they had drastic effects, and that matters; but Sunday when I bought this charming "Winter Fairy" at my church's St. Nicholas Bazaar, I decided it's high time to enter into my second childhood......
Multispecies Entanglement
I'm witnessing a surge in big, old-fashioned weddings for those who can afford up to half a million dollars to rent tents, clubs, hire staff, and buy the necessary clothes....
Moving at Sheeps’ Pace
Thinking about Tierra Wools' herd of sheep moving from their summer in the highlands here, reminds me of the two orphan lambs I raised in Kentucky when I was growing up....
Kentucky
KFW: Hopscotch House Announcement 2024
I would like to hear a reaction from any woman who has used Hopscotch House in the past. Please leave a message below, on Facebook, or via email....
Letter to the Editor, The Courier-Journal, 2/19/2024
I am writing to protest the just announced sale of Hopscotch House by the Kentucky Foundation for Women....
The Lost Cause
As I begin reading the collection of nineteenth-century Stiles letters that may provide the core of my next book, I'm brought reluctantly to remember two long ago incidents when loneliness pushed me closer to belief....
This Beautiful Weave
It strikes me that I have days like Sunday which seem to be a beautiful weaving of threads: red, blue, and all the other colors of the rainbow....
Groundhog Day
Today I'm celebrating something that happened several decades ago when Hopscotch House, belonging to the Kentucky Foundation for Women in Louisville, was just getting started and we needed an executive director....
Moving at Sheeps’ Pace
Thinking about Tierra Wools' herd of sheep moving from their summer in the highlands here, reminds me of the two orphan lambs I raised in Kentucky when I was growing up....
Winter at Wolf Pen Farm
It was never my intention to create a private estate, and it gives me great satisfaction to know that River Fields organizes seasonal wildflower walks at the farm, and that a generation of children is growing up in my three rental houses....
Hanging On
I'm visiting my old farm, Wolf Pen Branch Mill, ten miles east of Louisville, Kentucky for a few days, and find myself appalled, as always, by the spread of development....
Wolf Pen Mill Runs Again
Resounding through the maple and sycamore forest, the clanking must have drawn farmers from miles around, loading their carts with corn and driving over the rough stone road to the mill....
My Family
The Lost Cause
As I begin reading the collection of nineteenth-century Stiles letters that may provide the core of my next book, I'm brought reluctantly to remember two long ago incidents when loneliness pushed me closer to belief....
Christmas Comes but Once a Year…
I have such blissful memories of the Christmases of my childhood, first and foremost the firm insistence on going to church Christmas morning....
Azim’s Bardo
In the tumble of donated books in the Little Free Library, I saw one with a title that spoke to me: From Murder to Forgiveness: A Father's Journey by Azim Khamisa with Carl Goldman....
Multispecies Entanglement
I'm witnessing a surge in big, old-fashioned weddings for those who can afford up to half a million dollars to rent tents, clubs, hire staff, and buy the necessary clothes....
I’m Thankful For….
As our first snow fell here in the southern Rockies, my granddaughter asked me why I moved to Santa Fe 35 years ago....
Moving at Sheeps’ Pace
Thinking about Tierra Wools' herd of sheep moving from their summer in the highlands here, reminds me of the two orphan lambs I raised in Kentucky when I was growing up....
The <em>Ms.</em> Book
It arrived yesterday, a large, heavy, hardbound anthology of fifty years of writing from Ms....
A Summer Romance
Now with the summer coming to an end, I'm remembering what Labor Day meant to me growing up: the dispersal of the summer community....
Superstar: The Karen Carpenter Story
In the middle of all the shouting about the Barbie movie and the millions, if not billions, Hollywood plans to make, it's worth remembering that there was an earlier, much earlier, independent video....
California Dreamin’
It's no longer just the perfectly proportioned who wear thongs on the beach; the size of some of the buttocks on display is awe-inspiring....