Memorial Drive by Natacha Trethewey

This is a powerful read, something that I found because it is on Obama's 2020 reading list, but it is also on the New York Times 100 Notable Books. I have not read the author's poetry, which is what she is known for, but apparently it deals with the murder of her mother by her stepfather, and the overall content of this memoir will not be as shocking. The book is filled with descriptions of old photographs that reveal family history and mythology, the snapshots allowing us to see what these people couldn’t anticipate, the omens and grim premonitions they missed. Throughout the memoir, Trethewey explores the role that wilful forgetting has played in her life. After her mother’s murder on June 5, 1985, Trethewey spends many years attempting to ignore or silence the past. She becomes estranged from herself, but her memories of trauma keep circling back. This is so true for trauma, regardless of the source. In this case, she saw it coming, her mother saw it coming, it just wasn't prevented. The story is all the more compelling because of the supporting documentation. News footage. Cassette tape recordings. Transcripts of telephone conversations between her mother and the murderer. These documents perform a similar function in the book, working to fill blanks in the author’s memory and to create a fuller picture of a beloved mother. One of the most gripping moments in the memoir is when Trethewey presents the contents of a twelve-page document that her mother had been writing at the time of her death. Twenty-five years after the murder, Trethewey finally reads these words and hears her mother speak about her abuse, her escape from the marriage, and her hopes for a new life. It is heart breaking and probably alot more common than we know. The majority of women who are murdered are killed by men who profess to love them. This lays all that out.