Coleman, Penny

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Coleman, Penny

PERSONAL:

Married Daniel O'Connor, c. 1970s, (deceased); remarried; partnered; children.

ADDRESSES:

Home—New York, NY.

CAREER:

Photojournalist, historian, educator, and writer. Teaches photography and photojournalism at the International Center for Photography, New York, NY, and at New Jersey City University, Jersey City, NJ.

Exhibitions:

Include Senior Action in a Gay Environment (SAGE), New York, NY, 1998.

WRITINGS:

NONFICTION

Village Elders, University of Illinois Press (Urbana, IL), 2000.

Flashback: Posttraumatic Stress Disorder, Suicide, and the Lessons of War, foreword by Jonathan Shay, Beacon Press (Boston, MA), 2006.

SIDELIGHTS:

In her first book, Village Elders, photojournalist and oral historian Penny Coleman focuses on the history of the gay and lesbian community in Greenwich Village by photographing and writing about some of the culture's elders, who largely lived secret lives and faced dangerous recriminations if their sexual orientation was discovered. In a review in the Library Journal, David S. Azzolina noted that the "profiles … illustrate the wonderful way in which the human spirit thrives in periods of oppression." Whitney Scott, writing in Booklist, called Village Elders "an invaluable contribution to popular gay and lesbian and senior studies alike." In a review on the Out Smart Web site, a contributor wrote: "By presenting us with these well-researched portraits, Coleman offers us a glimpse into the confusion, frustration, and isolation that many lesbians and gays experienced." The contributor also noted: "The voices that emerge from the pages of Coleman's Village Elders are quirky and curious and passionate and jaunty and naive all at once."

Coleman writes about a topic that affected her own life in Flashback: Posttraumatic Stress Disorder, Suicide, and the Lessons of War. In the 1970s, Coleman was married to a Vietnam War veteran who suffered from Post-traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) and committed suicide shortly after the couple broke up. About twenty years later, Coleman decided to write about PTSD and Vietnam War veterans by interviewing other women whose husbands suffered from the disease and eventually committed suicide. In addition to her interviews with twelve women, Coleman presents her own take on PTSD and the military, noting that the military underplays combat-related psychotic problems and suicide and also actually hinders psychiatric intervention to help combat veterans. Commenting on the book in an interview on the LibraryJournal.com Web site, Coleman noted: "The more I talked to other widows, the angrier I got. We all blamed ourselves." Coleman added: "We had failed; we were abandoned. The government knew better and they didn't tell us. They exploited the stigma attached both to PTSD and to suicide that isolated and silenced us."

Writing on the ePluribus Media Web site, I.L. Meagher noted that, in the process of writing about her husband's suicide and its aftermath, the author "reveals her own private journey through darkness and shame in the years that followed." Meagher went on to write: "The five years the author devoted to researching her topic clearly reveals itself in every word, in every expression, and in the detailed Notes sections provided at the back of the book. This is the type of volume a researcher or historian will love." In a review of Flashback in Booklist, Donna Chavez wrote: "Punctuating this alarming presentation is a heavily researched history of what was once called shell shock." A Publishers Weekly contributor called the book a "tautly argued study of the link between war-induced post-traumatic stress and suicide." Melody Ballard, writing in the Library Journal, referred to Flashback as "a well-researched and well-documented publication with a uniquely human touch." A contributor to the Vietnam Veterans of America Web site called Flashback "well-crafted, insightful."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Advocate, Nov 21, 2000, Matthew Link, review of Village Elders, p. 66.

Booklist, September 1, 2000, Whitney Scott, review of Village Elders, p. 37; April 15, 2006, Donna Chavez, review of Flashback: Posttraumatic Stress Disorder, Suicide, and the Lessons of War, p. 16.

Library Journal, September 15, 2000, David S. Azzolina, review of Village Elders, p. 102; April 15, 2006, Melody Ballard, review of Flashback, p. 94.

Publishers Weekly, March 6, 2006, review of Flashback, p. 59.

Tikkun, July-August, 2006, review of Flashback, p. 81.