Archives in Fiction: The Traveling Archivist, Eastern Oregon: A Della Waters Archival Mystery

I'll be the first to admit that writing is hard. It isn't as simple as sitting in front of your computer and creating. There's a lot of time, drive, and creativity that goes into writing and sometimes it's a struggle just to have one of those things available, let alone all three. Half of the creative process for writing involves pushing past the stoppages and making something not just because you have to, personally or professionally, but because you need to get whatever it is out of your head so you can free up some space. Case in point: the amount of time between articles on this website.

So, I don't want anyone to mistake my criticism within this article for a lack of respect for the work it takes to produce anything. Like movies being made, the fact that a book gets published is a minor miracle. That being said, Mary B. Hansen's The Traveling Archivist, Eastern Oregon: A Della Waters Archival Mystery is a disappointment, to put it lightly. I've been wrestling with how to approach my critique since this novel should, by all accounts, absolutely be my jam. A queer femme archivist takes a temp job and uncovers a potential coverup of records surrounding the massacre of Chinese miners in the late 1800s? Yes, please, sign me up immediately! Unfortunately, the promise of the premise fizzles out early on as it becomes very clear that this isn't so much a "mystery" as it is a poorly thought out series of events with a protagonist skirting the line of tolerance for all the white woman nonsense she brings to the table.

But first, you probably want to know slightly more about the plot of this book, right?

The Traveling Archivist follows Della Waters, a transplant from Portland, Oregon, working as a temp archivist in the fictional Oregon town of Younger. She's the guinea pig of a pilot program through the state archives to send archivists out to more rural areas to assess, organize, and potentially digitize documents that might otherwise remain untouched or forgotten. The focus of Della's work are the records donated by the prominent Hightower family, which also includes dealing with the current head of the family, John Scott Hightower, who has some very rigid ideas about how his family's papers should be handled. While processing said papers, Della finds records of a trial concerning the massacre of thirty-four Chinese miners carried out by members of the town, including John Scott's grandfather.

That's the bare bones of the plot, but it's really all you need until we get into the nitty gritty of it later on.

To keep this review relatively reasonable, I'm taking a two-pronged approach:

1. How does the book depict the archival profession?

2. How does the book function as a story/narrative?

There are definitely points where the two overlap, but it's easier to make that separation because one works a bit better than the other. So, let's start with the more positive aspects.

From an archival perspective, the book is fine. Della herself falls into a stereotype of wearing cat's eye glasses and generic cardigans, but I can't judge her too harshly as I stare at my closet that contains multiple cardigans. It's cold in the archives! So, she gets a pass there. I think the least believable thing about her is that she doesn't have tattoos. A queer woman working in information management who doesn't have ink on her skin? Blasphemy!

There are multiple points within the story that Hansen describes various archival processes, as well as the time and labor required, that you don't see laid out in most narratives. It's a very thorough rundown of an early archival assessment and processing plan from the perspective of a state-contracted archivist along with all of the pitfalls of finances, lack of supplies, and social interactions that come with it. I can't be certain how informative the general public might find it, if they care at all, but this archivist appreciates the effort!

Woven into those explanatory rundowns, however, is this preachy, slightly condescending undertone that does little to endear the reader to Della as a character. Writing about archives and archival processes for those outside the profession isn't easy, I should know, but that also means you have to be careful about the tone of your explanations. Sure, I'm not a doctor, but I also don't appreciate a doctor talking down at me because I don't know something they might think is straight forward. Here's one example from page 75:

Processing archival records meant putting like materials together to help extend the life of the physical records. Creating a file list or a finding aid after the material was processed would help the archivist or researcher or a member of the public find it, even if it was not all in one box. That is what so many people didn't understand. Archives are not arranged by subject but by creator and ordered by material type.

You can absolutely say I'm being nitpicky about the tone, but it's worrisome to me when an author, who is also an archivist, tries to make the reader feel bad for not knowing something they wouldn't have known in the first place because I doubt the book was written solely for archivists to read. This is all Della's inner thought process as well, so I guess she likes admonishing the general public in her head?

Hell, if you want to see me to be really nitpicky, look no further than page 38 when Della decides that only non-professionals call records storage boxes "banker boxes." One, they're called bankers boxes. Two, bankers boxes have been associated with records, specifically legal and tax records, since the early 20th century. Three, I, a professional archivist for fourteen years, have always called them bankers boxes. All of my colleagues and professional mentors have called them bankers boxes, so what exactly are you on about, Della?

It's been a minute since I was so frustrated by a book protagonist, but Della is definitely up there. Hansen does her no favors by having an opening paragraph that trauma dumps on the reader with a backstory of events that takes place before the beginning of the book and expects the reader to care every time Della ruminates on her ex-friendship with Randall. Who is Randall, you ask? It doesn't matter because all you need to know is that he almost killed Della and whenever it's brought up in the story it's a means of garnering sympathy from other characters in the hopes that you, the reader, will also feel sympathy for Della because of what she's been through in a story you didn't read. If I'm being honest, once the full scope of Della's backstory is revealed, that story sounds like it should've been the first book. If it had, then I might actually care about her issues with Randall or her relationship with her cop girlfriend, Ana.

Yes, in the year of our Spaghetti Monster 2025 the protagonist is engaging in relations with a cop and, no, the book isn't interested in examining the inherent conflict between institutions, law enforcement, and the queer community. Ana's one of those good cops I keep hearing about. She even wore her uniform to Portland's pride parade and it's important we know that even though Ana, as a character, has no purpose except to be pined over, exploited for being queer and Latinx, and show up at the end to do nothing. Everything we know about the relationship between Della and Ana is based on previous events in a story that would have served as a better way of investing the reader in their relationship. Whenever the two talk to each other it's just to reiterate information we've already learned concerning the story or to rehash events that happened Before.

As an aside, when I was telling my co-workers about this book, one pointed out that my description of the "lovey-dovey" bits towards the end of the book was the most Ace I've ever sounded. Fair enough, but I've also latched on to much less when it comes to romance in other books or pieces of media. The difference is how well the characters are written.

Which brings me to the second prong of examination: story and narrative. If you've gotten this far, you're probably catching on to my oh-so-subtle feelings about this book. Firstly, the word "mystery" doesn't fit. There is no mystery to be solved. Della finds records about the massacre and we know within the next few pages whodunnit. The white people. The white people killed the Chinese miners. The next stretch of that mystery might be finding out if the records were deliberately covered up, implying no one in the town knew about the events. Nope, turns out it was an open secret no one really talked about! The stakes couldn't be lower.

Second, this book does something I really hate when it comes to archives and oppressed communities. The story isn't centered on the Chinese miners, it's centered on how all of the white people in Younger feel about it. Hansen dedicates the book to the Chinese miners because the massacre described did actually happen in Oregon. Unfortunately, we don't find out about the actual event until 80 pages into a 200 page story and once the cat's out of the bag, Della spends more time focusing on the ancestors of the white families involved.

One of the town's folk we meet is Roy Franklin, an old friend of John Scott Hightower and a rancher. When Della asks him about the massacre, he mentions his ailing mother might know something. He returns later with a full story about how his mother is a descendant of the youngest participant in the massacre and lays out all of that family history. There's some mention of how the family reputation might suffer, but that never truly makes a difference. Apparently, Mama Franklin just wants the story to be told because she feels awful about it. And we, of course, have to comment on the strength of her conviction and bravery. Okay, fine, but what about how anyone in the Chinese community feels? Nothing? Not even Della making contact with any Chinese organizations in Oregon who might have a thing or two to say? We don't even get any of their names even though, historically, we know some of their names because there have been books and articles published about the massacre before Mary B. Hansen wrote this "mystery"!

I know the reality of this situation and I think what Hansen was trying to do was show that archives can only bring the records to light. Archivists aren't investigative journalists or Sherlockian detectives deliberately casting aspersions on people. We work with the records we have and sometimes those records only give us a small amount of information. In Della Waters' world, the Chinese miners are only known through the court records documenting their deaths and the indictments of the white men responsible. Not everyone gets their comeuppance and a lot of times people are lost to history. But through the lens of this book, the records documenting the massacre are nothing more than a macguffin as all the white people congratulate themselves on not being the worst person in Younger. And when everything is said an done, Della offers a little prayer at the end for the men who were killed...which made me want to throw the book at a wall.

There's a lot more I could bring up, but I'm tired and I want this thing to be done. If you're reading The Traveling Archivist or you have read it, I'm curious to know what others think. I'm just as curious to see how a person feels about the book based on whether or not they're part of the archival community/profession. We're small, but we talk on occasion.