Effigy
I received the book, Out of the Twilight: Fathers of Gay Men Speak from the San Francisco
Public Library. The book's cover had been cut into and the word “gay” had been torn
away. Inside, the first several pages had been cut out at the spine with a sharp object,
ripped in half and then placed back inside the cover. For a few weeks I thought about the
topic of the book and the act of violence that it was subject to. Books are meant to
educate us, open our minds. It amazes me to think that someone could be so disturbed by
a book’s topic that they would want to attack it, kill it in attempt to remove it from his or
her consciousness. This act is so against what books stand for. Why is this person hanging
out in a Library? When examining the book I was drawn to this ripped sliver of paper and
its powerful, abstract words, “To my father and to the memory.” The vastness of meaning
that these words have gives new thought, new life to what once was, thus reversing the
act of vandalism.
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