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4.34 AVERAGE
4.34 AVERAGE
I’ve been “sitting” with this book for a couple of days after finishing. It kept me from sleeping. I kept mulling over it.
I first heard the author on Fresh Air during the summer of 2020. Covid was rampant and I could not read deep so I flagged it to read later because her interview was so compelling. No spoiler here, her mother was murdered in Atlanta where I live, PLUS she was a faculty member where I worked for a long while. Her voice was so sad but clearly focused during the interview. Fast forward to 2023. I familiarized my work book club with this title and they selected it for their second meeting this October
This book is possibly the saddest book I have ever read. The author has suffered tremendous trauma, articulated in this book with a distant but almost poetic like structure in her prose-appropriate as a former US Poet Laureate. She witnessed or was met personally with racism, parental divorce, domestic violence and ultimately the murder of her mother by her stepfather. And, upon research, I see he is now out of prison- and likely haunts her safety. This is a beautifully written book and I highly recommend it but you won’t leave the book with a measure of hope, IMO, where the author moves on from her trauma. It is just not possible. I listened to the audio book for a few chapters and it is a moving reading by Ms Trethaway if you prefer listening.
I first heard the author on Fresh Air during the summer of 2020. Covid was rampant and I could not read deep so I flagged it to read later because her interview was so compelling. No spoiler here, her mother was murdered in Atlanta where I live, PLUS she was a faculty member where I worked for a long while. Her voice was so sad but clearly focused during the interview. Fast forward to 2023. I familiarized my work book club with this title and they selected it for their second meeting this October
This book is possibly the saddest book I have ever read. The author has suffered tremendous trauma, articulated in this book with a distant but almost poetic like structure in her prose-appropriate as a former US Poet Laureate. She witnessed or was met personally with racism, parental divorce, domestic violence and ultimately the murder of her mother by her stepfather. And, upon research, I see he is now out of prison- and likely haunts her safety. This is a beautifully written book and I highly recommend it but you won’t leave the book with a measure of hope, IMO, where the author moves on from her trauma. It is just not possible. I listened to the audio book for a few chapters and it is a moving reading by Ms Trethaway if you prefer listening.
challenging
dark
emotional
sad
tense
Content Warnings
Moderate: Domestic abuse, Murder
Highly recommend listening to this as an audiobook - hearing her tell her own story is breathtaking. Phenomenal and heartbreaking!!
challenging
emotional
reflective
sad
fast-paced
Narrated by the author, the audiobook was superb. I could hear the emotion in her voice and it just captured what she was feeling while she wrote this amazing memoir. Beautifully told, heart wrenching at times, definitely a five star book!
Stirring and brutal. I know her primarily as a poet, and her deliberate approach to words carries through- especially when she is recounting the abuse that she experienced. This made a telephone conversation between her mother and her mother's abuser - printed verbatim - feel particluarly jarring. I realized then that her measured sentences provided some insulation from the reality of the pain and grief that accompanies abuse. This could not have an easy book for her to write. It was suprisingly easy to read - but it grips you hard and leaves a mark.