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cdneuhaus90 's review for:
Memorial Drive: A Daughter's Memoir
by Natasha Trethewey
Happy New Year. I am so excited for the all the reading to be had in the new year! While we have officially entered 2021, I still have a few book reviews left over from 2020 that I want to share my thoughts on. This book was just exceptional and still has me reeling!
CW: Domestic violence, maternal death
“What matters is the transformative power of metaphor and the stories we tell ourselves about the arc and meaning of our lives.”
Memorial Drive is a breathtaking memoir written by Natasha Trethewey who is known as the 2007 Pulitzer Prize winner in Poetry and was also the United States Poet Laureate in 2012 and 2013. In her memoir, Natasha confronts her past in retelling the events that lead up to the horrific and painful death of her mother at the hands of her former stepfather. Natasha unpacks how this trauma has shaped the arc of her life and into the artist that she is. She explores the ways in which the process of confronting her trauma after 30 years has formed a path towards healing.
Trethewey’s writing is breathtaking as she recounts the early years of her life within the arc of her mother’s death. She uses the power of vivid imagery and metaphor to convey the heartbreak and anger she had felt at the time that she has carried with her for over 30 years since the incident. I appreciate her vulnerability in allowing herself to convey the heavy grief and loss she has lived with for decades. I also greatly admire her strength in having the courage to share her story. This story is devastating and shook me to my core. She takes so much care and delicacy in sharing how the death of her mother has impacted her emotionally, but also shares the beauty in finding hope and healing in the process of understanding the trauma’s impact on her life.
“Even my mother’s death is redeemed in the story of my calling, made meaningful rather than merely senseless.”
CW: Domestic violence, maternal death
“What matters is the transformative power of metaphor and the stories we tell ourselves about the arc and meaning of our lives.”
Memorial Drive is a breathtaking memoir written by Natasha Trethewey who is known as the 2007 Pulitzer Prize winner in Poetry and was also the United States Poet Laureate in 2012 and 2013. In her memoir, Natasha confronts her past in retelling the events that lead up to the horrific and painful death of her mother at the hands of her former stepfather. Natasha unpacks how this trauma has shaped the arc of her life and into the artist that she is. She explores the ways in which the process of confronting her trauma after 30 years has formed a path towards healing.
Trethewey’s writing is breathtaking as she recounts the early years of her life within the arc of her mother’s death. She uses the power of vivid imagery and metaphor to convey the heartbreak and anger she had felt at the time that she has carried with her for over 30 years since the incident. I appreciate her vulnerability in allowing herself to convey the heavy grief and loss she has lived with for decades. I also greatly admire her strength in having the courage to share her story. This story is devastating and shook me to my core. She takes so much care and delicacy in sharing how the death of her mother has impacted her emotionally, but also shares the beauty in finding hope and healing in the process of understanding the trauma’s impact on her life.
“Even my mother’s death is redeemed in the story of my calling, made meaningful rather than merely senseless.”