‘Love and Loss After Wounded Knee’ by Julie Dobrow
Why did Julie Dobrow spend decades researching the tragic love story at the center of her dual biography, Love and Loss After Wounded Knee? In this episode of Why Authors Write, Julie reveals her obsession with the forgotten life of New England writer Elaine Goodale, who turned her back on fame as a teen poet, moved west, and married Lakota-born Charles Eastman right after the 1890 Wounded Knee Massacre. Dobrow acknowledges the challenge of understanding the dynamics of a failed interracial marriage that endured relentless public scrutiny, and what it cost Elaine to pour her talent into her husband’s literary legacy instead of her own.
