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A review by haveyoureadthis
Memorial Drive: A Daughter's Memoir by Natasha Trethewey
challenging
dark
emotional
inspiring
reflective
sad
medium-paced
5.0
"Ma'am. Your mother has been shot."
Hearing those words from the police department should be enough to shake anyone to their core. From the perspective of Natasha Trethewey, it had to be even more devastating knowing the history of her family and what her step-father would ultimately do.
I struggle rating memoirs. Who am I to stay whether someone's story is good or bad, worth reading or not? This is not any memoir. It is one of profound sadness, reflection, and the path to recovery from trauma. Tretheway lays the groundwork for their family history in this novel and brings it around to when her step-father murdered her mother. She does so with beautiful language, evidence of her talent as a writer. I imagine this is therapeutic and challenging, navigating your own story that was so tragic.
We start and end this book knowing everything Trethewey knows now. What hit me was the point in the story where she describes being able to finally sit down and read through the entire police file on her mother. We knew the story and outcome, but she did not as she lived it, only to find out new information after the incident had taken place. I tried to imagine myself sitting at my table, folders and papers spread everywhere, reading about my own history for the first time. And I can't place myself in her shoes. It is too difficult. This book is our glimpse into the trauma of another person and how they faced it and worked to overcome it.
Hearing those words from the police department should be enough to shake anyone to their core. From the perspective of Natasha Trethewey, it had to be even more devastating knowing the history of her family and what her step-father would ultimately do.
I struggle rating memoirs. Who am I to stay whether someone's story is good or bad, worth reading or not? This is not any memoir. It is one of profound sadness, reflection, and the path to recovery from trauma. Tretheway lays the groundwork for their family history in this novel and brings it around to when her step-father murdered her mother. She does so with beautiful language, evidence of her talent as a writer. I imagine this is therapeutic and challenging, navigating your own story that was so tragic.
We start and end this book knowing everything Trethewey knows now. What hit me was the point in the story where she describes being able to finally sit down and read through the entire police file on her mother. We knew the story and outcome, but she did not as she lived it, only to find out new information after the incident had taken place. I tried to imagine myself sitting at my table, folders and papers spread everywhere, reading about my own history for the first time. And I can't place myself in her shoes. It is too difficult. This book is our glimpse into the trauma of another person and how they faced it and worked to overcome it.