“Memory, in short, is engraved not merely by the life we have led but by the life of the mind…by all the lives we so nearly led but missed by an inch, and—if we grant enough leeway to the imagination—by the lives of others, which can cut into ours every bit as sharply as our own experience.” – Anthony Lane, writing about W.G. Sebald in The New Yorker (May 29, 2000)
-
Recent Posts
Archives
Categories
Meta
-
Join 1,063 other subscribers
Category Archives: Writing & Reading
“Welcome to Girl Land, my good little girls!”—Thank you Marlo Thomas and Friends
Caitlin Flanagan has a new book out. When a writer of a certain standing (read: excellent agent and/or energy-filled editor and publicist) is about to publish (again or for the first time), her name begins to pop up, there and … Continue reading
Posted in COUNTRIES OF LOST THINGS, Grief & grieving, Memory, Motherhood, Writing & Reading
Tagged 1970s, Caitlin Flanagan, divorce, Girl Land, grief, housewife, Joan Didion, motherhood, writer, writing
Leave a comment
Lots of latkes…Oh, Christmas tree…oh, Hanukkah, oh Hanukkah
Happy holidays, everyone! I’ve been consumed again by domesticity over the written word the past few weeks. (Is this a bi-annual event?) But amidst the Thanksgiving feast and Hanukkah festivities and upcoming Christmas celebrations, I’ve been thinking a lot about … Continue reading
Witness—the Holocaust, suicide, and memory (coincidence redux)
A few weeks ago, someone recommended the book Spectral Evidence to me, which, among other things, includes World War II photos from the Łódź Ghetto, the Nazis’ Jewish quarter in this major Polish city. I wrote the book title down … Continue reading
Tell me a story—about war
“While you were out last night, I saw a piece of paper, and it was very sad. And then it blew away,” my three-year-old reported the week before last. At first, I was not quite alarmed but certainly taken aback—how … Continue reading
When you open a door—night visions with Kafka or Beckett
My older son started a new school in May. This was a difficult decision, changing schools so late in the year, but one we made quite deliberately in navigating the New York City school system and the emerging needs of … Continue reading
The memory keepers: Remembering September 11th—and World Suicide Prevention Day, September 10th
My thoughts this weekend, along with much of America and many around the world, are on 9/11, remembering, mourning, thinking about what happened ten years ago and what has happened since. Two wars, much grieving, many shifts, small and large, … Continue reading
Posted in Memory, Motherhood, Suicide, War, Writing & Reading
Tagged 9/11, Aaron Fein, children, depression, Edwidge Danticat, grief, literature, suicide, White Flags, World Suicide Prevention Day
Leave a comment
My Father’s Guns (part 4) – Final Installment
©2007, originally published in Center: A Journal of the Literary Arts, Vol. 6, “My Father’s Guns,” by Kara Frye My Father’s Guns IV. Travel back. The early eighties: I might have been ten or eleven, and Dad had recently been … Continue reading
Antidepressants—and Sex & Motherhood—in the News
During the notorious summer lull in “serious” books, I have found a number of interesting articles to feed my brain in recent weeks on topics as varied as depression, divorce, subjectivity, sex, and motherhood. These essays—and their subjects—overlap and bump … Continue reading
Mysteries of childhood—avid reader, cannot read
Here I am, back on blog, a worried mother twisting her memory to remember what happened when in her young son’s life. Where does the trail begin, if I want to understand what he is struggling with now? Words are … Continue reading
My Father’s Guns (part 3)
©2007, originally published in Center: A Journal of the Literary Arts, Vol. 6, “My Father’s Guns,” by Kara Frye My Father’s Guns III. Stewart’s Gun Shop in Bloomington is on South Walnut, a side street perpendicular to central downtown. I’d … Continue reading
Posted in EXIT WOUND: Suicide is Not a Love Story, Memoir, Memory, Suicide
Tagged BATF, depression, divorce, father-daughter relationships, grief, gun laws, memoir, memory, suicide, suicide survivors, writing
Leave a comment