So I live in Richmond, VA and it’s a weird town when it comes to dealing with its own past. On the one had, it’s the site of a lot of pre-Civil War colonial trade. Founded by William Byrd and named for a spot on the Thames, Richmond has a kind of desperately clung-to aristocracy that is just a pure fabrication (like every aristocracy, sure, but more like a copy of a copy). Ellen Glasgow is Richmond’s own chronicler of this kind of desperation. Richmond […]