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Living on a Dream: A Marriage Tale by Patt Blue Review by Hal Jacobs J.W. was a salesman who believed that tomorrow would be a better day; he was also a philanderer and liar. Louise was a housewife and eighth-grade dropout who also believed in dreams -- that if she stayed home, took care of the kids and was a good homemaker, J.W. would eventually come back to her. Married to each other and then divorced three times, they are the focus of their daughter's book. Patt Blue, a photographer whose work has concentrated on people in pain -- unwed mothers, poor families, disabled people -- documents her parents' tortuous 30-year relationship by combining family photos with her narrative and an oral history as told by her mother. "I was on the witness stand the whole time with your father," Louise tells her daughter. She never had money to buy groceries, couldn't leave the house without permission, and when she came home, she was interrogated. Yet, despite all this, she always believed her husband when he said things would get better. But as betrayals and humiliations mounted up ("Your daddy was just oversexed!"), Louise never felt empowered and threw the bum out (like every heroine of every movie of the week). Thirty years later, all she can do is look back at her life and say she was afraid. If you've seen Terry Zwigoff's documentary of Robert Crumb, then you're familiar with this dark territory. Cold War America. The father who didn't know best. Families that tried their best to fit into the new suburban landscape, but were overrun by inner demons. At some point you wish you could hear from J.W. -- or one of his 22 girlfriends (by Louise's count). You want to know how he sees himself -- Casanova or Henry Miller? Instead, we're treated to the kind of conversation a mother has with her grown child late at night, circling around the truth, trying to build consensus about what happened 30 years ago. J.W. is reduced to a starring role in the family photos, where he comes across as a smooth, beguiling player. In her preface, Blue says her first exposure to photography was from her father, a dedicated amateur who, no matter where they lived, always had a darkroom. But it wasn't love that drove him to snap family pictures. "J.W. was obsessed with a need to be in charge, so the idea of controlling the ephemeral existence of his wife, children, and girlfriends must have generated in him much excitement and enthusiasm for photography." One can't help but draw a parallel between Blue and her father. First Louise was exploited by her lying-cheating husband, then by her book-publishing daughter - when all she ever wanted was a normal life and a fixed-up house. Is the book worth it? Yes, in the end it's Patt Blue's ability to triumph over the demons that counts. | top |
from The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Sunday, August 9, 1998 |