Norah Vincent has gone undercover twice in order to gather material to write a book: once as a man, in the investigative project that generated her book Self-Made Man: One Woman’s Year Disguised as a Man, and once as a mental health care facility patient, as part of the research for her book Voluntary Madness: My Year Lost and Found in the Loony Bin. Therefore, it seemed entirely appropriate that I was going undercover as a reader of her books, in order to take her picture at Bookshop Santa Cruz.
I’m glad I didn’t read Norah Vincent’s books first, because this event had an emotional resonance that it wouldn’t have had if I’d already formed opinions about her. I can’t tell you yet what I think of her writing until I finish Self-Made Man, but I can say a few things about her presence. Norah Vincent was kind, gentle, and respectful of her audience. She faced us with a direct, serious gaze only broken occasionally by a grin. She was humble and likeable.
She told us that the intense passage she’d chosen to read from her book was not one she’d feel comfortable reading to just any audience, a remark that was sure to please the Santa Cruzans who’d gathered to hear her speak, definitely a group that considers itself open-minded. But it was when she started weaving together strands of philosophy with spiritual ideas, and relating them to her own thoughts and experiences, that she made friends of us all. I don’t know how to describe the effect she had, other than to say Norah Vincent was very much our cup of tea, and we would’ve gone on for hours listening to her and asking her questions if there had been time. And this was almost entirely due to her presence, her energy. Here in Santa Cruz, we really respond to good energy.
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