"A luminous and searing work. In the end, we stand with Trethewey''s grief, feeling it as friends rather than voyeurs. That is perhaps what makes this book both so timely and timeless. The lonely death, the personal tragedy, haunts our daily living now more than ever. Even the sweetest moments of progress seem to always be marked by unimaginable loss. Memorial Drive answers the question: How we might manage it." -- Boston Globe "I''ve not read an American memoir where more happens in the assemblage of language.Memorial Drive forces the reader to think about how the sublime Southern conjurers of words, spaces, sounds and patterns protect themselves from trauma when trauma may be, in part, what nudged them down the dusty road to poetic mastery.
The more virtuosic our ability to use language to probe, the harder it becomes to protect ourselves from the secrets buried in our -- and our nation''s -- marrow. This is the conundrum and the blessing of the poet. This is the conundrum and blessing of Memorial Drive." -- New York Times Book Review "Alternately beautiful and devastating." -- Washington Post "Nothing [Trethewey] has written drills down into her past, and her family''s, as powerfully as Memorial Drive. It is a controlled burn of chaos and intellection; it is a memoir that will really lay you out. This is a book with a slow, steady build. This is restraint in service to release.
Even though you intuit what is coming, the moment you learn of Gwendolyn''s death is as stunning as the moment when Anna Magnani is shot in the street in Roberto Rossellini''s Rome, Open City." -- New York Times "In Memorial Drive, Natasha Trethewey has transformed unimaginable tragedy into a work of sublimity. There''s sorrow and heartbreak, yes, but also a beautiful portrait of a mother and her daughter''s enduring love. Trethewey writes elegantly, trenchantly, intimately as well about the fraught history of the south and what it means live at the intersection of America''s struggle between blackness and whiteness. And what, in our troubled republic, is a subject more evergreen?" -- Mitchell S. Jackson, author of Survival Math "Haunting, powerful, and painfully stunning, Memorial Drive is one of the best memoirs I''ve read in a long time. A brilliant storyteller, Trethewey writes the unimaginable truth with a clear-eyed courage that proves, once again, that she''s one of the nation''s best writers." -- Ada Limón, author of Bright Dead Things and NBCC award-winner The Carrying "Beautifully composed, achingly sad.
This profound story of the horrors of domestic abuse and a daughter''s eternal love for her mother will linger long after the book''s last page is turned." -- Publishers Weekly "[A] graceful, moving memoir.Delicate prose distinguishes a narrative of tragedy and grief." -- Kirkus Reviews "A moving, heartbreaking memoir about a traumatic event and the path to healing." -- Library Journal "Natasha Trethewey has composed a riveting memoir that reads like a detective story about her mother''s murder by a malevolent ex-husband. It reads with all the poise and clarity of Trethewey''s unforgettable poetry--heartrending without a trace of pathos, wise and smart at once, unforgettable. The short section her mother penned as she was trying to escape the marriage moved me to tears. I read the book in one gulp and expect to reread it more than once.
A must-read classic." -- Mary Karr, author of The Liars'' Club; Cherry; and Lit "This is a dedication and memorial to a Black woman''s survival through racist and misogynist territory to lovingly raise a family." -- Electric Literature "For Natasha Trethewey, the end is very much the beginning, for both her startling new memoir and, as we learn across its pages, the second iteration of herself. Propelled by the Pulitzer Prize-winning U.S. poet laureate''s remarkable command of language, it''s a story that burrows deep in your emotional center. The work enraptures like a thriller, unraveling as it races against the inevitable." -- Esquire "A former U.
S. poet laureate, Natasha Trethewey brings her mastery of language to this tough, lyrical account of a daughter entering the adult world while dealing with the brutal murder of her mother." -- Entertainment Weekly "This heartbreaking but ultimately triumphant memoir explores the long-buried past Trethewey fought to forget and the cruel, powerful forces of domestic abuse and racism." -- Town & Country "Former U.S. Poet Laureate and Pulitzer Prize winner Natasha Trethewey contemplates the traumas of her youth in her aching new memoir. Fixating on her mother''s past as well as her own, Trethewey constructs a moving reflection on racism, abuse and trauma." -- Time "Part coming-of-age, part true crime story, Memorial Drive is the memoir of Pulitzer Prize winner and former U.
S. Poet Laureate Natasha Trethewey, a heartbreaking tale of domestic abuse and the story of Trethewey''s mother who is brutally murdered by her ex-stepfather. She returns to the years she once buried, narrating tragedy and unearthing pain along the way." -- Parade "A wrenching prose account of loss. Relying on memory, case documents, & transcripts of recorded phone conversations . Trethewey offers a gutting depiction of domestic violence. This book is not an easy read, but it is an illuminating one." -- Buzzfeed "A precise, piercing memoir that explores unimaginable loss, grief, rage, and resilience.
[A] visceral, haunting book. Trethewey is unflinching in her depiction of the horrors of domestic abuse--and in the power of the love between a mother and child." -- Refinery 29 "Trethewey, the Pulitzer Prize-winning poet and former US Poet Laureate, uses her consummate literary skills to craft this heart-rending account . A tragic tale, told with clarity and shattering insight." -- BBC.com "[Trethewey''s] celebrated linguistic talent is evident. What''s most remarkable here is Trethewey''s storytelling abilities as she forges a gripping narrative of a woman coming to terms with her trauma." -- Chicago Magazine "Stunning .
As Trethewey revisits her past, she again turns on a light in the darkest of corners, piecing together the memories of her childhood and her mother''s death at the hands of her former stepfather. Her pain still feels primal, but the poet confronts shadows to reveal, as she writes, "the story I tell myself to survive." -- Garden & Gun "Trethewey brilliantly explores how her upbringing and her mother''s murder shaped her into the artist she is today." -- Deep South Magazine "In Memorial Drive, [Trethewey] explores the loss and lingering grief that has shaped so much of her work. Trethewey''s heartbreakingly beautiful memoir honors her mother, Gwendolyn, while also indicting a culture that fails to protect abuse victims as they try to retrieve their lives from the clutches of their abusers." -- Bitch Magazine "[An] astonishing, gripping memoir.Memorial Drive is the story of how a mind can be made by love and rupture in equal measure, and how--growing up--poetry, composing herself, became the way for Trethewey to restore the former by building a bridge over the latter. This is work of immense dignity and sorrow, a psalm to a past forever gone, and a vivid glimpse of a writer tangling with her demons in plain sight in hopes others like her might feel less alone with theirs.
" -- LitHub "Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Natasha Trethewey turns her gift for storytelling to a memoir in this slim, elegant account of her mother''s murder and all that transpired after it, including how the author transformed the pain of her loss and a life steeped in racism into words that transcend hatred and violence to uplift others." -- Atlanta Journal-Constitution "Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Natasha Trethewey explores the trauma of her mother''s murder in a memoir poet Mary Karr calls ''heartrending without a trace of pathos.'' Trethewey''s mother was shot to death in 1985 in Atlanta by the author''s abusive stepfather. Trethewey, a former U.S. poet laureate, sketches a portrait of her mother''s life in the South as she considers the enduring influence of her love as well as the vicious effects of domestic violence, racism and sudden loss." -- Boston Herald "[Trethewey''s] memoir tells the tragic, moving story of her journey out of the pit of grief and into her role as one of America''s most celebrated artists." -- BookPage "Natasha Trethewey''s forthcoming memoir Memorial Drive just bowled me over.
Is it the best true crime memoir I''ve read? It''s certainly in my upper echelon now." -- Sarah Weinman, Crime Lady newsletter "A work of exquisitely distilled anguish and elegiac drama . Through finely honed, evermore harrowing memories, dreams, visions, and musings, Trethewey maps the inexorable path to her mother''s murder. Trethewey writes, ''To survive trauma, one must be able to tell a story about it.'' And tell her tragic story she does in this lyrical, courageous, and resounding remembrance." -- Booklist (starred review) "A daughter''s heartrending memoir. A haunting look at the cost of violence and the enduring bond between mother and child." -- People "Trethewey excavates her mother''s life, transforming her from tragic victim to luminous human being.
She is a living, breathing dynamo, coming of age in the Jim Crow South, breaking out of the restrictions imposed on her. This is a political book. It is the story of a woman cut down in her prime, about a sick man who imposed his control and had his way, about the larger story of power in America." -- Washington Post "Both a haunting elegy and profou.