My First Thirty Years: A Memoir

Edna Gertrude Beasley's memoir, My First Thirty Years, was suppressed and lost to history until now. It reveals the story of a woman who grew up in abject poverty in rural Texas during the early 1900s, battling internal wars with herself concerning her family, faith, sexual reckoning, and quest for education. It is one of the most brutally honest coming-of-age historical memoirs ever written.

\n Format: Paperback / softback
\n Length: 352 pages
\n Publication date: 28 October 2021
\n Publisher: Sourcebooks, Inc
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Thirty years ago, I found myself enclosed within the womb of a woman, conceived through a violent act of rape, carried during the prenatal period by an unwilling and rebellious mother, and finally expelled from the womb to endure torment within a family that I either despised or pitied. Subsequently, I was forced into association with individuals whom I should never have chosen. This is the searing opening to Edna Gertrude Beasley's raw and scathing memoir, originally published in Paris in 1925 but subsequently suppressed and lost to history—until now. Only five hundred copies were printed, with very few of them making their way into the hands of readers. These copies were either confiscated by customs inspectors or removed from bookshelves by Texas law enforcement. Her book was essentially banned, and her voice silenced. In 1927, Beasley, a self-proclaimed socialist and staunch feminist who fought for women's rights, disappeared. Her fate remained a mystery until researchers began digging into her story. While residing in London, she was thrown out of her lodgings—the reasons for which remain unclear—arrested, and placed in a mental ward. A few months later, she returned to the United States and was committed to a psychiatric center on Long Island. She never left, dying there of pancreatic cancer in 1955.

My First Thirty Years unveils the story of a woman who grew up in abject poverty in rural Texas during the early 1900s, where she battled ongoing internal wars with herself concerning her family, faith, sexual reckoning, and quest for education at a time when women were not supposed to discuss those things. Beasley's memoir stands as one of the most brutally honest coming-of-age historical memoirs ever written. It is a story that deserves to be heard.

\n Weight: 336g\n
Dimension: 134 x 202 x 27 (mm)\n
ISBN-13: 9781728242880\n \n