![]() ![]() ![]() How can the contemporary novel speak the unspeakable? It’s an old question, a tired one perhaps, now that “the unspeakable” has come to encompass many forms of trauma that writers regularly speak about: self-harm, sexual abuse, genocide, fascism, climate change. Giorgio de Chirico: The Archaeologist, 1927 from Endless Enigma: Eight Centuries of Fantastic Art, the catalog of a recent exhibition at the David Zwirner Gallery. Private Collection, Monaco/Nicholas Hall and David Zwirner/© 2019 Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York/SIAE, Rome ![]()
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![]() ![]() ![]() The case is also made for a kind of societal blind spot on abortion at the time of both the Evans and Christie trials in particular, a reluctance to come to terms with the concept of the male abortionist, which distorted the criminal investigations and the trials themselves. Exploring the language of abortion used in these different contexts, the article reveals changes in the gendering of abortionists, the increasing power and presence of abortion activists and other social reformers, the changing representation of working-class women and men, and the increasing critique of the practice of backstreet abortion. ![]() It shows how the commonplace connection of John Christie to abortion and Beryl Evan's death was not a given in the wider public, legal, political, and forensic imagination of the time, reflecting the multi-layered and shifting meanings of abortion from the date of the original trials in the late 1940s and 1950s, through the subsequent judicial and literary reinvestigations of the case in the 1960s, to its cinematic interpretation in the 1970s. This article addresses the social, cultural, and political history of backstreet abortion in post-war Britain, focusing on the murders of Beryl Evans and her daughter Geraldine, at Ten Rillington Place in 1949. ![]() ![]() ![]() ” Cooking was one of Cary’s joys, but it wasn’t one of his talents. I’m breaking in the new kitchen for dinner.” “If I make it through the day, that’ll be worth celebrating.” “How about tomorrow after work?” I offered as a substitute. ![]() No matter his expression, he was a knockout. ![]() I fully expected his million-dollar face to appear on billboards and fashion magazines all over the world one day. “Walk fast, work out faster.” Cary’s perfectly executed arched brow made me laugh. “After I time the walk to work, I’m going to hit the gym.” “I don’t know if I’ll make it back in time.” I gestured at my yoga pants and fitted workout tank. ![]() We can hit a happy hour and be in by eight.” “I’m not talking about a bender,” he insisted. I might have resented that if he hadn’t been the dearest person on earth to me. Leanly built, dark-haired, and green-eyed, Cary was a man who rarely looked anything less than absolutely gorgeous on any day of his life. We’d been unpacking for days, yet he still looked amazing. “Come on, Eva.” Cary sat on our new living room floor amid a half dozen moving boxes and flashed his winning smile. “I’m sure drinking the night before starting a new job is a bad idea.” I’d always considered it part of his charm. Cary Taylor found excuses to celebrate, no matter how small and inconsequential. I wasn’t surprised by my roommate’s emphatic pronouncement. ![]() |