Memorial Drive: A Daughter's Memoir by Natasha Trethewey

Memorial Drive: A Daughter's Memoir by Natasha Trethewey
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

4.0/5.0 - Natasha Trethewey is the former US Poet Laureate and Pulitzer Prize winner, whose mother was murdered by her estranged stepfather when Natasha was 19 years old. This well written book is her attempt to come to terms with it, after more than three decades. In an interview with Atlanta, Trethewey explains her motivation for writing the memoir when she did.

And in the telling of my backstory, there was mention of my mother as a footnote or an afterthought, as this victim, as this murdered woman. And she was being written out of the story, I think, in terms of her real, important role in my life. People were drawing a direct line from my father, who was also a poet, to me being a poet, and it troubled me because, not only was he a poet, but he was my white parent; he was also my male parent. When I was growing up in the deep South, white people would say to me when I did anything well, “Oh, that’s your white side,” as if nothing good came from the other side. So, I wanted to set the record straight. I felt like if she was going to be mentioned in my backstory, she was going to have her proper place as the reason I write—to contend with that great loss.

(Atlanta, Sept. 2020). Excellent book, if difficult to read.
Book 203 of 2021

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