Life Story Links: April 9, 2023

“And trust me when I say—again—that no one wants to read the story of your whole life, not even your sweet, forbearing mother who thinks everything you do is fascinating.”
—Rachael Herron

Vintage photo of women having a picnic on the beach in Coney Island, Brooklyn, New York, circa 1905. Photograph originally from the Detroit Publishing Company, courtesy of The Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division Digital Collection.

Memoirs and more

AN HOUR WITH MASTER MEMOIRISTS
This delightful conversation between Beth Kephart and Abigail Thomas about her latest memoir, Still Life at Eighty, includes thoughts on juxtaposition, chronology, being an intuitive writer, getting unstuck, and how the body remembers.

STORIES OF PERSEVERANCE AND TRIUMPH
Three debut memoirists chart paths of chaos and survival: reviews of Deborah D.E.E.P. Mouton’s Black Chameleon, Laura Cathcart Robbins’s Stash, and Christine Barker’s Third Girl From the Left.

MAPPING HISTORY
“A lot of survivors want to tell their stories, and not everybody can write a book. Not everybody actually knows how to tell a story.” A look at an interactive mapping platform sharing stories of adoptees from the Sixties Scoop.

HIDING BEHIND PHOTOGRAPHY
“So much has to be added to still pictures, no matter how evocative, in order to tell a story,” Carl Rollyson writes in this thought-provoking review of Janet Malcolm’s “oblique” memoir, Still Pictures.

“OUR HOMES ON INDIGINEOUS LANDS”
Mali Bain’s new book uses family history to thoughtfully interrogate Canada’s settler past and ask: What stories are we passing on to our children?

A NEW DIMENSION
“Perhaps I am an invisible man lurking behind my father’s face, waiting to be born. And, eventually, to grow into my father’s face. Not exactly, but somewhat.” Viet Thanh Nguyen ruminates on the cover design of his new memoir.

Records of lives well lived

MEMORIES, ERASED
“I was the only historian of our short-lived universe and now it was lost for ever.” Our phones and computers have become hosts for our pasts. What happens when the backups fail?

NYC PHOTOG JAMEL SHABAZZ’S INSPIRATION
“When I would go to [my uncles’] homes, and my grandfather’s house, the first thing I would do was hit the photo album up, because it allowed me to time-travel and get a greater understanding of who they were.”

VINTAGE WEDDING ALBUM
Lest we think that only digital representations of our memories can get lost, I am sharing this heartwarming snippet of a lost wedding album being reunited with the family decades later—a scenario that plays out all too often:

Lost wedding album from 1956 found in New Jersey, returned to family 60+ years later

Media recommendations

DEAR DIARY
Suleika Jaouad writes about how to develop a “sticky” journaling practice and shares some evergreen writing prompts to help you get in the flow.

FROM OBIT TO MINI-MEMOIR?
Last week I shared five life writing tips derived from the book Yours Truly: An Obituary Writer’s Guide to Telling Your Story by James R. Hagerty (which I recommend regardless of your writing level or experience).

EXPLORING INTERGENERATIONAL MEMORIES
In “The Memory Generation,” podcast host Rachael Cerrotti “sets an example of how the stories we inherit can initiate insightful conversations that help us not only reflect on the memories that define us but also build upon our capacity for empathy.”

Miscellaneous

THE LEGACY OF FOOD
“It happens gradually, the relinquishing of one’s past, and something that once felt so potent, one day simply stops being as important.” Finding memories of a distant home through milo toast in this excerpt from Rachel Heng’s The Great Reclamation (a novel that feels memoir-ish in the best possible way).

FOLLOWING THE CLUES
“Elvira and her brothers, Ricard and Ramón, were left at a train station in Barcelona aged two, four and five. As an adult, when Elvira decided to look for her parents, she discovered a family history wilder than anything she had imagined.” A mystery solved through childhood memories and DNA.