Lapham’s Quarterly Roundtable (A Longreads Best of 2016: Under-Recognized Stories)

“Cradling Carson’s head in my hands, afraid of dropping it and smashing the bright eyes and individually planted eyelashes, I thought about uncanny wax bodies. They show scars and burns. They glow, crease with wrinkles and smiles, and submit to dusting. They put on Union officers’ uniforms and dashikis; they get stalked by bears and Klansmen. They ride in a Pontiac to nursing homes and Lexington Market; they fly to NAACP conventions; they embody histories and the unfixed possibilities of life.”

(Photo: Rosa Parks and her wax figure, courtesy of the National Great Blacks in Wax Museum)

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