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A review by gabsalott13
Memorial Drive: A Daughter's Memoir by Natasha Trethewey
4.0
***TW: domestic violence, abuse, murder
There is no review I can give that does justice to this memoir, which is another confirmation of my belief that our best modern writers are Black Mississippians.
Memorial Drive is a gutting, visionary memoir that experiments with several forms to depict how Natasha Trethewey experienced her mother's life and death. Her mother, Gwendolyn Ann Turnbough, is presented to readers in a robust fashion in this memoir, which functions as a multi-media compilation. To combat trauma and time's compounding challenge to her memory, Trethewey gathers dreams, diaries, taped conversations, family photos, and other records to fill in her mother's story. I cannot imagine the deep mining this must have took, both emotionally and organizationally. For such a heartbreaking book to be so readable is a testament to Trethewey's craft and care with her mother's memory.
Fans of Trethewey's poetry will appreciate Memorial Drive's thematic explorations: of "geography as fate", of place/person as myth, of guilt and purpose and how they intersect at grief. There is also a continued prompt for people who are learning and practicing abolition (in this context, I mean people working on the continuum to a world without the prison industrial complex.)
When Trethewey describes the brief period of time in which her stepfather was incarcerated as a safe haven for her and her mother, I entirely believe her, and am trying to understand how a world without prisons could amplify this safety from abuse, not diminish it. I understand that many people experiencing abuse would find safe havens in a world that provides quality mental health services or housing to all who need them, and a world that ends the nuclear family as a system where children belong to their parents, and wives are possessions of their husbands "until death do them part." However, I don't think I'll ever forget Trethewey's stunning, in-medias-res portrayal of how her mother could (temporarily) rekindle her relationships and thrive while her eventual murderer was in jail for one of his earlier attempts at taking her life. I cannot think of another safe haven her family could have had in that moment, and it feels like an imperative to find one, lest we ignore the very real need for distance/isolation from abusers that Trethewey articulates in this book. I hope to learn about (and help build) the kind of world that would support survivors who need their abusers to have no access to them, while not subjecting said abusers to forms of state-sanctioned violence in prisons.
Moving on from my political quandaries, I would highly recommend this memoir if you are mentally in a space to handle a book covering domestic violence, murder, and abuse.
There is no review I can give that does justice to this memoir, which is another confirmation of my belief that our best modern writers are Black Mississippians.
Memorial Drive is a gutting, visionary memoir that experiments with several forms to depict how Natasha Trethewey experienced her mother's life and death. Her mother, Gwendolyn Ann Turnbough, is presented to readers in a robust fashion in this memoir, which functions as a multi-media compilation. To combat trauma and time's compounding challenge to her memory, Trethewey gathers dreams, diaries, taped conversations, family photos, and other records to fill in her mother's story. I cannot imagine the deep mining this must have took, both emotionally and organizationally. For such a heartbreaking book to be so readable is a testament to Trethewey's craft and care with her mother's memory.
Fans of Trethewey's poetry will appreciate Memorial Drive's thematic explorations: of "geography as fate", of place/person as myth, of guilt and purpose and how they intersect at grief. There is also a continued prompt for people who are learning and practicing abolition (in this context, I mean people working on the continuum to a world without the prison industrial complex.)
When Trethewey describes the brief period of time in which her stepfather was incarcerated as a safe haven for her and her mother, I entirely believe her, and am trying to understand how a world without prisons could amplify this safety from abuse, not diminish it. I understand that many people experiencing abuse would find safe havens in a world that provides quality mental health services or housing to all who need them, and a world that ends the nuclear family as a system where children belong to their parents, and wives are possessions of their husbands "until death do them part." However, I don't think I'll ever forget Trethewey's stunning, in-medias-res portrayal of how her mother could (temporarily) rekindle her relationships and thrive while her eventual murderer was in jail for one of his earlier attempts at taking her life. I cannot think of another safe haven her family could have had in that moment, and it feels like an imperative to find one, lest we ignore the very real need for distance/isolation from abusers that Trethewey articulates in this book. I hope to learn about (and help build) the kind of world that would support survivors who need their abusers to have no access to them, while not subjecting said abusers to forms of state-sanctioned violence in prisons.
Moving on from my political quandaries, I would highly recommend this memoir if you are mentally in a space to handle a book covering domestic violence, murder, and abuse.