My Amazon and Goodreads review of Memorial Drive: A Daughter’s Memoir by Natasha Trethewey (Rating 5) – Re-Dreaming a Nightmare in Order to Awake. Memorial Drive: A Daughter’s Memoir did not initially draw me in. Author Natasha Trethewey employs her skills as a Pulitzer prize-winning poet to circle at a distance rather than directly confront her mother’s death at the hands of Trethewey’s abusive stepfather, three decades ago, when Trethewey was nineteen. As a prose writer (see my Amazon author page) and Goodreads author page), I craved more narrative. Yet, once the story became more personal and engaging, I realized the style of writing mirrored the author’s reluctant journey into the past, finally summoning the courage to face a horror she long avoided. Only by re-dreaming the nightmare can she wake up to her loss. More moving than the facts of the murder itself are Trethewey’s reminiscences of her bond with her mother. Although these held special resonance for me, any reader can relate to the push and pull, longing and guilt, that passed between them. Having seen, Trethewey can never unsee, but she can remain awake.
