Memorial Drive, by Natasha Trethewey
Plus 4 More Memoirs I'm Reading by Black Authors
Memoirs with Melissa shares bimonthly reviews intended to expose readers to diverse authors and life experiences. To see more of what I’m reading, browse my virtual memoir shelf on Goodreads.
Lately I’ve been learning to love memoirs by poets. There’s something about the rhythm and feel of the language that carries me through the story in a way plot and pacing alone can’t achieve. In recent months, I’ve read several 5-star examples: Solito by Javier Zamora, Brown Girl Dreaming by Jaqueline Woodson, and You Could Make This Place Beautiful by Maggie Smith. In honor of Black History Month, I’d like to call special attention to Memorial Drive by poet Natasha Trethewey.
Memorial Drive is yet another book I picked up on recommendation from my writing mentor. In it, Trethewey reckons with her mother’s murder in the kind of prose that’s so beautiful it hurts. She tells us upfront the crime was carried out by her former stepdad, a detail that left me wondering how and why such a tragic event occurred. Trethewey’s literary talent is obvious throughout as she feeds the reader pieces of the emotional puzzle. But she’s not out to entertain us with a mystery. Her book is an attempt to reclaim the self she lost in the trauma and make sense of her story in a way that allows her to survive today.
Trethewey reckons with her mother’s murder in the kind of prose that’s so beautiful it hurts.
Like In the Dream House, by Carmen Maria Machado, Trethewey makes periodic use of the second person (you/yours) point of view to enhance her story. Not only does this point of view show how she dissociated from her 19-year-old self after her mother’s murder, but it also embodies her struggle to connect with events on the page, even as she writes her story in adulthood.
For most of the book, Trethewey focuses on the personal, emotional journey of surviving her mother’s death. It’s the emotional truth she’s trying to work out. By the end, though, she reveals factual elements of the story to spotlight the racial injustices that allowed the murder to happen. Fair warning: you will experience outrage.
In true poet fashion, Trethewey draws on metaphor to unify the book and achieve a sense of closure in her personal journey. I love how her metaphor for a little-t-trauma in childhood morphs into a model for understanding the big-T-trauma she experiences in young adulthood. One might also say the private journal she keeps as a child that goes public when her stepdad reads it without permission was practice for turning her intensely personal journey into this powerful, public manifesto.
Want This Memoir?
Consider purchasing from Femme Fire Books or your local independent bookstore. You can also read more from this author on her author website at https://natashatrethewey.com.
4 More Memoirs I’m Reading by Black Authors
Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, by himself - Part of why I’m obsessed with memoir is that it gives humans a way to tell their own stories on their own terms. This classic is a first-person narrative of Frederick Douglass’s experience of and escape from slavery. His birthday is also part of the reason why Black History Month is celebrated in February. (For more about this book and why you need to read it, check out the last part of my interview with author R/B Mertz.)
Finding Me, by Viola Davis - I’m not usually into memoirs by famous people, but this actor’s book has all the elements I love about the genre done well. She tells her story in a way that can only be done by a person who has subjected themselves to lots of therapy and personal work. Davis has experienced extreme poverty as well as extreme success. We are fortunate she has been so generous in sharing her vulnerabilities and insights.
From Scratch, by Tembi Locke - Sometimes you just need a good story, and this is a damn good one. It covers love, grief, food, and family in a way that will make you think you’re reading a novel. Even if you’ve already seen the Netflix series it inspired, the book is worth the read. The emotional pacing is much more digestible on the page than on the screen, not to mention more filling.
Quietly Hostile, by Samantha Irby - This Black, queer humor essayist had me laughing out loud in bed. Reading the latest in her series, which comes out May 16, has been a refreshing change of pace from the heavy material I tend toward. If sexually explicit humor makes you uncomfortable, you might want to skip this one. Otherwise, buckle up for a good belly laugh.
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