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A review by sallyreb
Memorial Drive: A Daughter's Memoir by Natasha Trethewey
4.0
I picked up this book after listening to an interview with Natasha Trethewey on Fresh Air (in case anyone is interested https://www.npr.org/2020/07/28/896205843/poet-natasha-trethewey) and I read it over a long weekend away at the coast. This was both a compelling read and a very challenging read. Trethewey is a poet, her writing is beautiful, which makes this story that much more heartbreaking.
Trethewey spends a great deal of time bringing to life her early years growing up in the south, the child of a Black woman from Mississippi and white Canadian father, during a time when interracial marriage was far from accepted. Her father, a writer and professor, is absent much of the time and eventually her parents divorce, but he instills a love of learning and language in her. Her grandparent home is a constant in her life and she takes great care in bringing her time there with family to life, so much so we can almost hear the squeaky floorboards of this old house and see the curtains waving in the balmy evening breeze. And her mother, Gwen, is an ever-present force, a woman ahead of her time who values family and home and loves her daughter without question. Trethewey truly brings her mother to life.
Once single, her mother moves to Atlanta, where she earns a master’s degree and enjoys her new life and work in the city. Soon she meets someone, and somewhat surprisingly they marry, even though her family is not fully in support of the marriage. Here is where things take a dark turn.
Later, long after her mother’s murder at the hands of her step-father, Trethewey is in Atlanta and by chance runs into a former law enforcement officer who worked on her mother’s case. He provides Trethewey with case records, from a photo, which dredges up memories, to a chilling transcript of the recording of the conversation between her mother and her step-father in the days before her mother’s murder.
I read this book quickly, it’s a slim book, but there were some passages that I sat with for hours, setting the book down to hold back tears and sit with the weight of the story. It is a beautiful and painful story.
Trethewey spends a great deal of time bringing to life her early years growing up in the south, the child of a Black woman from Mississippi and white Canadian father, during a time when interracial marriage was far from accepted. Her father, a writer and professor, is absent much of the time and eventually her parents divorce, but he instills a love of learning and language in her. Her grandparent home is a constant in her life and she takes great care in bringing her time there with family to life, so much so we can almost hear the squeaky floorboards of this old house and see the curtains waving in the balmy evening breeze. And her mother, Gwen, is an ever-present force, a woman ahead of her time who values family and home and loves her daughter without question. Trethewey truly brings her mother to life.
Once single, her mother moves to Atlanta, where she earns a master’s degree and enjoys her new life and work in the city. Soon she meets someone, and somewhat surprisingly they marry, even though her family is not fully in support of the marriage. Here is where things take a dark turn.
Later, long after her mother’s murder at the hands of her step-father, Trethewey is in Atlanta and by chance runs into a former law enforcement officer who worked on her mother’s case. He provides Trethewey with case records, from a photo, which dredges up memories, to a chilling transcript of the recording of the conversation between her mother and her step-father in the days before her mother’s murder.
I read this book quickly, it’s a slim book, but there were some passages that I sat with for hours, setting the book down to hold back tears and sit with the weight of the story. It is a beautiful and painful story.