Excellent essay on “The Power of Voice” by Siobhan McHugh. She shares a devastating tape-recording of Jan Graham, an Australian woman who reported the Vietnam War:
She wept as she told of finding the mutilated body of her lover, a Green Beret on surveillance with the US army. I offered to stop the tape, but she wanted to be purged of all the memories, and the worst was yet to come. Have a listen to the three minutes of tape here. It’s barely been edited, apart from where I shortened some of the pauses, as her grief was just unbearable:”
“Jan Graham” (3:18 mp3):
Then she compares that spoken version to the written text of it that appeared in the book Minefields and Miniskirts:
But when I wrote up the interview for a book, the flatness of the words on the page haunted me…
…Much more to read and think about in this Transom > Sidebar proclaiming “The Power of Voice.”