Suzanne Macaulay is an art historian, folklorist, and social and behavioral scientist specializing in the customs, habits, and differences among cultures and social groups. She shares her residence between Colorado and New Zealand. Her book, Stitching Rites, is the first comprehensive academic treatment of Spanish colonial colcha embroidery and Hispanic art revitalization movements. Suzanne recently interviewed Joanne Greenberg about On the Run. The interview is featured in the Rocky Mountain Reader.
“Panic. Any gear—no gear will work now. Eighty-five, ninety. … Steering takes all the attention, moving between cars, horn letting people know that the rig is in trouble. … women and children in the back of the rig are screaming. … At one-ten on such a curve … physics declares itself in the name of the law. The semi-trailer, tons and tons, yards long and with eighteen heavy wheels, rises, goes airborne, flies, flies above the cars passing under it and the whole of it begins to turn over in the air….” ~From the book’s prologue.
“When I asked Greenberg why she had chosen to write On the Run, she said, “I think you need at least ten years after a big event to write about it. I never thought of doing writing that wasn’t fiction. Then I thought well, enough time has passed. And I had kept notes [both fire rescue logs, and also personal notes].” The immediate catalyst had been an invitation to the 50th Anniversary celebration of the Genesee
Fire Department, which is part of the fire and rescue network in Joanne’s area of Colorado. She couldn’t attend, but a reunion was arranged between her and Lori Poland, who had been kidnapped at age
three in a nationally publicized crime. Greenberg was one of the main rescuers to recover Lori from the bottom of an outdoor toilet in a deserted park where she had been abandoned by her kidnapper. During that ordeal and the trip to the ER in Denver, Lori and Joanne had strongly bonded, but hadn’t seen each other for over 30 years.” ~From the Rocky Mountain Reader interview.
“Empathy and compassion toward victims is on every page of On the Run—similar to how those attitudes and behaviors on behalf of others saved the protagonist in Greenberg’s most famous book, I Never Promised You a Rose Garden, the fictionalized version of her recovery from mental illness as a young woman. These themes manifest in her insistence on positioning herself in the ambulance so that she could see “eye-to-eye” with a victim not only to monitor vitals but to also offer a compassionate lifeline to someone who was frightened, in pain and suffering physically and emotionally. In refuting an esteemed doctor’s dismissal of a psychotic victim as one who will never recover, Greenberg counters by referring to her own past experience of mental illness. She credits her illness and recovery as fundamental to how she moves through this world—how she behaves, her attitude toward others and the truth in her writing.” ~From the Interview
“Advocacy for victims is apparent throughout the book. A surprise to some may be the extent of Greenberg’s support for deaf and blind people confined to and marginalized within mental institutions worldwide. Wherever she goes, for example to Sweden, she seeks out deaf people institutionalized in various mental hospitals. Her campaign is to create awareness of the deaf and their isolated loneliness, to canvas resources and identify methods of communication (signing is high on her list), uncover possible misdiagnoses, encourage surveys of former residents about the positive and negative aspects of their experience and engage local organizations supporting the deaf. Her persistent efforts in this area of advocacy earned her an honorary degree from Gallaudet, the University of the Deaf, in Washington D.C.” ~ From the Interview