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“Stunningly vivid in its detail, heartbreaking
in its emotional vision, this book rings long and true.”--
Kim Barnes
“A dazzling first book of personal essays...
Writing rarely gets this emotionally real.”-- Robert
Atwan, editor of The Best American Essays
“... opens the door to an important
use of memoir as a genre... McClanahan has found a way to
make the personal a language for a greater concern."
-- Calyx
“Very few memoirs achieve the raw beauty, the searing
honesty, and the transcendent shimmer of McClanahan’s
rememberings.”--The Charlotte Observer
"The story is not the story of the family, but the story of memory itself."--Water-Stone
"McClanahan weaves a quilt that beckons us with its warmth ... without
striking a false, much less sentimental, note." --The Georgia Review
In this ensemble of interrelated essays, writer
and poet Rebecca McClanahan explores the familiar rituals,
the shared dreams, and the guarded secrets that tie family
together as she unravels the mysteries behind familial relationships.
She also considers the meaning of losses--the loss of a child,
a family home, and a family pet, and a lost chance at motherhood.
Partly fashioned around the lines of the folk tune "The
Riddle Song," The Riddle Song and Other Rememberings captures
the palpable bonds that exist between mothers, daughters, fathers,
siblings, aunts, uncles, nieces, nephews, and grandparents. |
