Logical Family: A Memoir

by Armistead Maupin

we spotted a woman in spike heels tottering ahead of us on a perfect green lawn. She was a pale-pink hallucination, a tipsy flamingo on the run, perfumed and powdered to the nth degree. As soon as she was out of earshot, Grannie turned to me with a sly smile and murmured, “Any woman who is all woman or any man who is all man is a complete monster unfit for human company.” This was the South in 1958, and I had never heard such a thing.

The South makes social progress, like everywhere else, though it does its level best not to notice it while it’s going on. Only later, when it stands a serious risk of looking like a total asshole, does it claim to have always been on the side of decency and justice. (The same style of black-on-silver historical marker that identifies the home of my slavery-defending Grandpa Branch now celebrates the site of a 1960 sit-in at a Woolworth’s in Greensboro.)