CHARITY AND SYLVIA

Chronicling same-sex love in early New England.

This graphic biography by award-winning graphic novelist Walden (Spinning, 2017, and On a Sunbeam, 2018) takes its inspiration from the artifacts and archives of two women who lived together in rural Vermont for nearly half a century. Walden’s presentation of their story firmly insists that the reader engage directly with the daily lives of women in the early 1800s. As the book begins, Charity arrives in Weybridge, Vermont, evading rumors and judgment back in Massachusetts. Sylvia, a large family’s youngest daughter, cares ceaselessly for nieces and nephews while quietly seeking her own life. Soon after meeting, Charity asks Sylvia to share her rented room above a gristmill, and the pair become inseparable. They build a tailoring business, rent land, and construct a home together. They attend church, share life with Sylvia’s family, and actively participate in their community. That they remained partnered in a world where homosexuality was essentially unimaginable is played with such subtlety as to sometimes blur into insignificance. Yet, that normalcy reveals the book’s beating heart—existing resolutely as themselves in a circumscribed world is a resounding affirmation of queer love. But even life-long love has an end. The specter of mortality haunts nearly every page—the pair endure a litany of family deaths and spend much of their old age managing ailments, awaiting what lies beyond while holding fast to each other. This unrelenting passage of time is communicated in uniformly 12-panel pages filled with conversation and daily work. When Walden pushes against this format’s restrictions, her looser, almost ethereal imagery proves breathtaking. Walden also employs her particular gift for drawing simple faces that express innocence, excitement, devastation, and devotion in a few pen strokes—she brings Charity and Sylvia to life with tremendous tenderness and grace.

A timeless story of marriage, well-grounded in queer history. An absolute triumph.