A review by bookwormmichelle
Ordinary Light by Tracy K. Smith

4.0

This was really lovely. I knew Smith knew her way around words, but this is an impressive effort. This delicate and sensitive memoir mostly circles around Smith's relationship with her mother, who died of cancer soon after Smith's graduation from Harvard. But it also touches on many other parts of her life--faith, being black, being the youngest child, being far removed from her parents' upbringing in the Jim Crow south. Beautiful, at times heartbreaking.