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jadefromdade's review against another edition
5.0
Finished this book and I’m honestly speechless. I am amazed by how she was able to write about a traumatic experience in her life in such a delicate and sensitive way. At one point I got literal goosebumps, she reached into the depths of her soul to write this one and it shows. This deserves all the awards and more.
thank you Natasha for giving us a piece of your heart I know this book will stay with me forever
thank you Natasha for giving us a piece of your heart I know this book will stay with me forever
thechanelmuse's review against another edition
5.0
“Scientists tell us there are different ways that the brain records and stores memory, that trauma is inscribed differently than other types of events. To survive trauma, one must be able to tell a story about it.”
In Memorial Drive: A Daughter's Memoir, Pulitzer Prize-winning poet and two-term U.S. Poet Laureate Natasha Trethewey revisits her family history and early years as a “child of miscegenation” in Mississippi, before illuminating the darkness of her coming-of-age in Atlanta, Georgia. Tretheway unearths her dormant memories, repressed trauma, and survivor's guilt while giving voice to her late mother, Gwendolyn Ann Turnbough, who was brutally murdered by her unstable second ex-husband when Natasha was 19.
It is raw, heavy, harrowing, and chilling yet eloquently written.
Almost like transforming the spirit back to flesh, Turnbough speaks her account of experiencing domestic violence, and the will to live and protect her children through court documents and phone transcripts up until the last words before her demise. "If trauma fragments the self," Tretheway notes, "then what does it mean to have dominion over the self? You can try to forget. You can go a long time without making a full revolution, but memory is a loop." Tretheway confronts this loop even in her dreams, etching a glimpse of joy and a momentary pathway for her mother's survival before the inevitable fast forwards.
In Memorial Drive: A Daughter's Memoir, Pulitzer Prize-winning poet and two-term U.S. Poet Laureate Natasha Trethewey revisits her family history and early years as a “child of miscegenation” in Mississippi, before illuminating the darkness of her coming-of-age in Atlanta, Georgia. Tretheway unearths her dormant memories, repressed trauma, and survivor's guilt while giving voice to her late mother, Gwendolyn Ann Turnbough, who was brutally murdered by her unstable second ex-husband when Natasha was 19.
It is raw, heavy, harrowing, and chilling yet eloquently written.
Almost like transforming the spirit back to flesh, Turnbough speaks her account of experiencing domestic violence, and the will to live and protect her children through court documents and phone transcripts up until the last words before her demise. "If trauma fragments the self," Tretheway notes, "then what does it mean to have dominion over the self? You can try to forget. You can go a long time without making a full revolution, but memory is a loop." Tretheway confronts this loop even in her dreams, etching a glimpse of joy and a momentary pathway for her mother's survival before the inevitable fast forwards.
katiecentabar's review against another edition
dark
emotional
sad
4.5
Content Warnings
Graphic: Domestic abuse and Murder
ginnylambda's review against another edition
challenging
dark
emotional
hopeful
reflective
sad
medium-paced
5.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Death, Gun violence, Violence, Death of parent, Stalking, Domestic abuse, and Racism
missyjohnson's review against another edition
4.0
This is one of the few Pulitzer Prize winners that I have read that I thought was a decent read. This is a sad story of a woman killed by her ex-husband, told by her daughter. The author is a former U.S. poet laureate. The remembrances of prior events during her young life and the metaphors recognized now were well done.