Becoming Duchess Goldblatt: A Memoir
By Anonymous
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt 2020

Into a site full of division and alienation walks an octogenarian with a porn star name, a starched ruff, and a sly twinkle in her eye. Duchess Goldblatt, a fictional persona whose name is the name of a childhood pet mixed with a mother’s maiden name, has made it big on Twitter. For her social media avatar, “Her Grace” uses a 1633 Dutch portrait of an elderly woman with an expression as inscrutable as the Mona Lisa. Her wisdom, “made of spun sugar and justice,” is dispensed to thousands of Twitter followers who love the character’s combination radical acceptance, unconditional love, and sometimes-sharp humor. “Hopes and dreams need air,” she tweets. “Cracking a window in the car an inch and leaving them behind while you run errands will not work. They could die.”

In response to her tweets, her followers offer Duchess Goldblatt not only love but worship in return, from appreciative tweets and private messages on Twitter to gifts sent via her “Man on the Outside” (gifts which could be anything from pies named after her to a coffee mug with an image of her seventeenth-century face emblazoned on front).

One of the highlights of Duchess Goldblatt’s experience online has been her connections with authors and artists. Soon after she starts her Twitter account, Duchess Goldblatt strikes up a friendship with the musician Lyle Lovett—a relationship which jumps from exclusively digital to adamantly real when Lovett invites Goldblatt’s creator to meet him and then attend one of his concerts. Over time, their friendship blossoms. He encourages her to write a book. The creator of the character does that just that, publishing Becoming Duchess Goldblatt: A Memoir with credit only to Anonymous.

Not surprisingly, the fictional Duchess Goldblatt already has writing experience, having supposedly published three books (including a family memoir An Axe to Grind) as well as her contributions on Twitter. But this new real-life memoir is not just her story. It is also the memoir of the character’s creator. Many readers and followers assume Duchess Goldblatt was created by either an elderly woman or a younger gay man, but this memoir’s author claims to be a young woman. Perhaps we should take this claim with a grain of salt, given the author’s ability to create such fleshed-out fictional personae, but the tone of Becoming Duchess Goldblatt feels quite honest.

“Anonymous” begins her story in the midst of a difficult time in the author’s life. She in undergoing a messy divorce and trying to figure out how to share custody with her former husband of their young son. With little explanation, the author states that when her husband left her, many of her friends abandoned her as well. There are times in the book when her portrayal of her situation borders on the self-indulgent. But then she begins to tell us more about her family of origin: a gentle father who died too young, her addicted brother with suicidal mental illness, her own selective mutism during her childhood years. Rather than merely overwrought self-pity, readers recognize that the author is suffering through intense despair.

In an effort to overcome her sense of isolation, the author creates a social media persona so she can interact with others without risking any real connection with real-life human beings. Soon, she finds herself channeling what she thinks of as her father’s voice, expressing his faith in humanity. “My father’s memory is a blessing and a balm,” the author writes. “When Duchess is at her best, he’s alive again.” Her character’s compassionate tweets attract numerous followers who, as she writes, gather in her name at restaurants and bookstores and museums, hoping to turn their online connections with each other into true friendship.

Yes, that really is just about all there is to the basic plotline of Becoming Duchess Goldblatt. It is a light and comforting read, perfectly pitched for these chaotic times. Although Duchess Goldblatt uses her quirky lovingkindness to bring people together, the memoir’s author feels that the character’s greatest gift has been to the author herself. Over time, Duchess Goldblatt has helped the author find her own voice, not just the spirit of her father. She speaks with a voice full of both wit and generosity. Although there are moments when this final claim sounds a bit maudlin, the book nevertheless reminds us that reaching out with open hearts, perhaps with the “evergreen love of all humanity” that Duchess Goldblatt has, brings deep meaning to our own lives as well as the lives of others.

—Hannah Joyner is an independent historian living in Washington, D.C. Her work includes Unspeakable: The Story of Junius Wilson and From Pity to Pride: Growing Up Deaf in the Old South. You can find her on BookTube at https://www.youtube.com/c/HannahsBooks.