Memorial Drive

Memorial Drive: A Daughter’s Memoir

(2020, Ecco)

A book that makes a reader feel as much as Memorial Drive does cannot be written without an absolute mastery of varied modes of discourse. Trethewey, a Pulitzer Prize-winning poet, deploys scenes of inventiveness and sensuality . . . grinding action verbs and alliteration.–Kiese Laymon, New York Times Book Review

A chillingly personal and exquisitely wrought memoir of a daughter reckoning with the brutal murder of her mother at the hands of her former stepfather, and the moving, intimate story of a poet coming into her own in the wake of a tragedy

At age nineteen, Natasha Trethewey had her world turned upside down when her former stepfather shot and killed her mother. Grieving and still new to adulthood, she confronted the twin pulls of life and death in the aftermath of unimaginable trauma and now explores the way this experience lastingly shaped the artist she became.

With penetrating insight and a searing voice that moves from the wrenching to the elegiac, Pulitzer Prize–winning poet Natasha Trethewey explores this profound experience of pain, loss, and grief as an entry point into understanding the tragic course of her mother’s life and the way her own life has been shaped by a legacy of fierce love and resilience. Moving through her mother’s history in the deeply segregated South and through her own girlhood as a “child of miscegenation” in Mississippi, Trethewey plumbs her sense of dislocation and displacement in the lead-up to the harrowing crime that took place on Memorial Drive in Atlanta in 1985.

Memorial Drive is a compelling and searching look at a shared human experience of sudden loss and absence but also a piercing glimpse at the enduring ripple effects of white racism and domestic abuse. Animated by unforgettable prose and inflected by a poet’s attention to language, this is a luminous, urgent, and visceral memoir from one of our most important contemporary writers and thinkers.

Reviews and Praise

“A book that makes a reader feel as much as Memorial Drive does cannot be written without an absolute mastery of varied modes of discourse. Trethewey, a Pulitzer Prize-winning poet, deploys scenes of inventiveness and sensuality . . . grinding action verbs and alliteration. There is comedic play where we expect sorrowful melodrama. There is languish where we expect deliverance. . . . There is a deeply Southern echo in these pages that offers us the opportunity to do more than marvel, more than pander to pathos, more than pity Tasha, the child, and admire Natasha Trethewey, the writer. . . . Memorial Drive forces the reader to think about how the sublime Southern conjurers of words, spaces, sounds and patterns protect themselves from trauma when trauma may be, in part, what nudged them down the dusty road to poetic mastery. I closed Memorial Drive asking myself how one psychologically survives the secrets we hide from ourselves when our freedom depends not simply on extraction, but on the obliteration of cliché — the lazy reader’s and lazy memory’s truth. The more virtuosic our ability to use language to probe, the harder it becomes to protect ourselves from the secrets buried in our — and our nation’s — marrow. This is the conundrum and the blessing of the poet. This is the conundrum and blessing of Memorial Drive.”—Kiese Laymon, New York Times Book Review

“Nothing [Trethewey] has written drills down into her past, and her family’s, as powerfully as Memorial Drive. It is a controlled burn of chaos and intellection; it is a memoir that will really lay you out.”—Dwight Garner, New York Times

“Trethewey’s souvenirs from the past, inflected with the knowledge of the poet she’d become, have the intentionality of memorials, not just memories.”—Katy Waldman, New Yorker

“A daughter’s heartrending memoir. . . . A haunting look at the cost of violence and the enduring bond between mother and child.”—PEOPLE, Book of the Week

“In this subtle, sublime memoir, the former poet laureate draws us into the devastating story of her mother’s 1985 murder and through the heart’s terra incognita. Trethewey’s languid pace deftly builds the drama to inevitable tragedy while illuminating the interior life of an imaginative, emotionally abused child.”—O, The Oprah Magazine

“[A] brutal, beautiful memoir . . . The narrator’s struggle to come to terms isn’t kept out of view, but documented on the page, inviting us into the pain of her process. Trethewey does not hold your hand. But she does guide you, confidently, into states of grace and revelation and beauty.”—David Canfield, Entertainment Weekly

“[In her] aching new memoir. . . . Trethewey constructs a moving reflection on racism, abuse and trauma.“—TIME

“In lush and vivid prose. . . . the former U.S. poet laureate investigates the intersections of racism, grief and legacy, paying special attention to the language we use to describe it all.”—TIME, “The 100 Must-Read Books of 2020”

“In Memorial Drive, we see the deep saturation of luminous images and resonant meaning that Trethewey’s work is known for. And while it can be tempting to take for granted this stunning language that characterizes Trethewey’s poetic voice, it is important to note here the high level of craft that sustains this quality of resonant, imagistic intensity through the several hundred pages of linear prose narration that is here. In Memorial Drive, the musicality of language combines with imagistic intensity to create a world of heightened subjectivity . . . By [including her mother’s writings] rather than speaking for her or over her, Trethewey centers the victim of the abuse and trauma. Again, agency and voice, not erasure, is Trethewey’s project here. In this moment, Trethewey offers us a powerful way to decolonize and reconsider this question of the representation of the trauma of the self and of others.”—Hope Wabuke, NPR.org

“A haunting elegy and profound coming-of-age story . . . nothing short of astounding. Tenderly but viscerally exploring the horrific murder of her mother by her former stepfather, Tretheway traces the making of a young Black woman in the South, and the ways agony and joy intertwine to shape us.”—Elle

“Natasha Trethewey’s memoir is predicated on a brutal act, but there is nothing sensational about the way it reads. . . . The books takes its name from the street where the murder took place, and the writing itself has an emotional groundedness. This book may have been written by one of our most celebrated poets, but its lyricism is tethered to the author’s lived and deeply felt experience.”—Vogue

“Propelled by the Pulitzer Prize-winning U.S. poet laureate’s remarkable command of language, it’s a story that burrows deep in your emotional center. . . . The work enraptures like a thriller, unraveling as it races against the inevitable.”—Esquire

“This heartbreaking but ultimately triumphant memoir explores the long-buried past Trethewey fought to forget and the cruel, powerful forces of domestic abuse and racism.”—Town & Country

“I can’t stop thinking about—and talking about—Memorial Drive . . . Trethewey is a provocative, beautiful writer; the way she describes, unpacks, and shares what it was like to grow up with a black mother and a white father, and to have her mother killed by her stepfather when she was only 19, is tragically clear-eyed. Trethewey investigates her mother’s life, and her own childhood, and in so doing she gives shape to the embedded racism of this country. At the same time, she describes how childhood trauma and the fierce love of her mother shaped her heart, mind, and art. This is a book that everyone should read.”—Amazon Book Review

“A heartbreaking tale of domestic abuse and the story of Trethewey’s mother who is brutally murdered by her ex-stepfather. She returns to the years she once buried, narrating tragedy and unearthing pain along the way.”—Parade

“Transcendent. . . . Memorial Drive is a showpiece of what language can do when it’s unfettered from strict narrative; when a poet, with every word a tiny bit of moldable clay, takes prose to new places.”—New York Magazine

“An exquisitely written, elegiac memoir. . . . Combines the jewel-like concision of [her poems] with the propulsive drive of narrative nonfiction. . . . Memorial Drive is Trethewey’s gorgeous exploration of all the wounds that never heal: her mother’s, her own, and the wounds of slavery and racism on the soul of a troubled nation.”—USA Today

“This makes the top 10 for my entire reading life. . . This slim, transcendent memoir . . . [is] truly a work of genius.”—Hillary Kelly, L.A. Times

“An investigation of memory and trauma, of loss, sorrow and love. . . . This brilliant, beautiful, piercing memoir will stay with listeners long after the last word has been uttered.”—Washington Post

“I cry easily in real life but, strangely, not that often while reading, so it was really special to spend a weekend of weeping with Natasha Trethewey’s Memorial Drive, a devastating, powerfully and beautifully written memoir about domestic violence and witness.”—Yaa Gyasi, Wall Street Journal

“A wrenching prose account of loss. . . . Trethewey offers a gutting depiction of domestic violence. This book is not an easy read, but it is an illuminating one.”—BuzzFeed

“[Trethewey] explores interlocking themes of domestic abuse, grief, trauma, white racism and memory in this wrenching memoir.”—NBC News Digital

“[Trethewey] uses her consummate literary skills to craft this heart-rending account . . .  A tragic tale, told with clarity and shattering insight.”—BBC.com

“A luminous and searing work . . . Trethewey’s mother was murdered by Trethewey’s former stepfather in 1985, when Trethewey was only 19 years old. ‘Why?’ is too cruel a question to ask. Nothing could explain such a tragedy. But the ‘how’ is a soul-stirring echo over the arc of her own life, 20th century history, and 200 pages. . . . It is an elliptical journey of beauty and wounding . . . She provides a model for living with woundedness, making something usable out of the myriad details, some beautiful, others anguished. This is a specific daughter’s memoir, but it is also a daughter’s memoir in a collective sense, a way of braiding together a legacy. The writing is quiet in the way grief often is. Even in the tensest of moments . . . she refuses melodrama. The requisite composure, learned over generations of terror experienced by Southern Black women, makes its way into her prose. . . . In the end, we stand with Trethewey’s grief, feeling it as friends rather than voyeurs. That is perhaps what makes this book both so timely and timeless. The lonely death, the personal tragedy, haunts our daily living now more than ever. Even the sweetest moments of progress seem to always be marked by unimaginable loss. Memorial Drive answers the question: How we might manage it.”—Imani Perry, Boston Globe

“A haunting meditation on loss, violence and memory.”—New York Post

“Chillingly beautiful. . . . Compact but beautifully observed musings on race, family, love and even national monuments. There are no easy lessons here, but the poet provides a great gift by helping us understand that a journey so deeply marked by tragedy is one that can continue.”—San Francisco Chronicle

“A beautiful, devastating memoir. . . . Written with great beauty and delicacy.”—Atlanta Journal Constitution

“Memorial Drive is the work of a brilliant adult, reframing the insights of an uncommonly keen child. . . . An enduring work, beautiful and horrific. . . . Trethewey is a survivor, and over the course of three decades she has become able to tell a story about it. The story she tells is grim and grand, like all struggles to survive. In her telling, Trethewey reveals and instructs.”—Minneapolis Star Tribune

“Like the very best contemporary memoirs, this book will swallow you whole and spit you out hours later, shaken and moved.”—Slate.com

“[A] powerful gut punch of a memoir . . . Trethewey brings her poetic sensibility to her quest to understand the tragic course of her mother’s life and how her own life had been shaped by that legacy. This discursive, artful memoir is a testimony to the bonds of Southern Black women, and Trethewey’s mother poses the profound question: ‘Do you know what it means to have a wound that never heals?’”—National Book Review

“A precise, piercing memoir that explores unimaginable loss, grief, rage, and resilience. . . . [A] visceral, haunting book. . . . Trethewey is unflinching in her depiction of the horrors of domestic abuse—and in the power of the love between a mother and child.”—Refinery29

“It is the memory of her mother, and her loss, that Trethewey’s unforgettable new book Memorial Drive orbits around like a brilliant sun. . . . One of the most powerful books of the year: while dealing with race and the South, power and gender, and growing up to become a writer, it also details the terror of domestic violence and reveals the shape of grief. . . . In a brilliant move, Trethewey includes extended passages in her mother’s words, giving voice to the woman who was silenced 35 years ago.”—Shondaland

“[A] painful, vulnerable, and heart-wrenching memoir. . . . Memorial Drive dives deep into the impact of . . . loss, but [it] is also about her childhood, about the relationship she and her mother forged, and about how domestic violence escalates—from a sly word here and there to physical violence.”—Bitch

“Memorial Drive is written with a poet’s keen ear for language and Trethewey’s knack for historical detail and retrospection. Using descriptions of photographs, dreamscapes, memories of historical events . . . and even transcripts of the final phone calls between Turnbough and Grimmette, Trethewey builds a narrative that asks: How does one get intimately close to violence and still survive? Memorial Drive proves that the answer is neither simple nor singular, and memory is only one of the avenues we travel in our quest to remember those we’ve lost.”—BookPage, starred review

“Stunning . . . As Trethewey revisits her past, she again turns on a light in the darkest of corners . . . Her pain still feels primal, but the poet confronts shadows to reveal, as she writes, ‘the story I tell myself to survive.’”—Garden & Gun

“Trethewey has delivered the kind of book that can only come from a writer at the height of her powers, a human at the height of her wisdom and pathos. . . .  What may be the greatest of this book’s many strengths: the way Gwendolyn herself comes through, not as an empty space defined by the events around her, not as a person diminished by her abuse or by her end, but as herself. Her photo graces the book’s cover, her own writing is powerful, and Trethewey has painted her in all her complexity.”—Rebecca Makkai, Chicago Magazine

“Trethewey, a former U.S. poet laureate, sketches a portrait of her mother’s life in the South as she considers the enduring influence of her love as well as the vicious effects of domestic violence, racism and sudden loss.”—Boston Herald

“Trethewey brilliantly explores how her upbringing and her mother’s murder shaped her into the artist she is today.”—Deep South Magazine

“A brutal but beautiful book about the way in which wounds in life never heal. . . . [Memorial Drive is] about not so much the triumph of art over death but the way in which art enables us to navigate through grief.”—Bill Goldstein, NBC NY

“A work of exquisitely distilled anguish and elegiac drama . . . Through finely honed, evermore harrowing memories, dreams, visions, and musings, Trethewey maps the inexorable path to her mother’s murder. . . . [A] lyrical, courageous, and resounding remembrance.”—Donna Seaman, Booklist, starred review

“Reprising years that she tried to forget, a daughter unearths pain and trauma. . . . [A] graceful, moving memoir . . . Delicate prose distinguishes a narrative of tragedy and grief.”—Kirkus Reviews

“[A] beautifully composed, achingly sad memoir . . . This profound story of the horrors of domestic abuse and a daughter’s eternal love for her mother will linger long after the book’s last page is turned.”—Publishers Weekly

“This memoir has been receiving the highest praise — lauded as a triumph of elegiac prose. Natasha Trethewey is a Pulitzer Prize-winning poet whose work staggers my heart. . . . This is one of the most beautiful memoirs I have ever read. . . . [A] stunning and important book.”—Elizabeth Gilbert

“Natasha Trethewey has composed a riveting memoir that reads like a detective story about her mother’s murder by a malevolent ex-husband. It reads with all the poise and clarity of Trethewey’s unforgettable poetry—heart-rending without a trace of pathos, wise and smart at once, unforgettable. The short section her mother penned as she was trying to escape the marriage moved me to tears. I read the book in one gulp and expect to reread it more than once. A must-read classic.”—Mary Karr, author of The Liar’s Club, Cherry, and Lit

“In Memorial Drive, Natasha Trethewey has transformed unimaginable tragedy into a work of sublimity. There’s sorrow and heartbreak, yes, but also a beautiful portrait of a mother and her daughter’s enduring love. Trethewey writes elegantly, trenchantly, intimately as well, about the fraught history of the south and what it means to live at the intersection of America’s struggle between blackness and whiteness. And what, in our troubled republic, is a subject more evergreen?”—Mitchell S. Jackson, author of Survival Math

“Haunting, powerful, and painfully stunning, Memorial Drive is one of the best memoirs I’ve read in a long time. A brilliant storyteller, Trethewey writes the unimaginable truth with a clear-eyed courage that proves, once again, that she’s one of the nation’s best writers.”—Ada Limón, author of NBCC Award-winner The Carrying

Formats: Paperback, Hardcover, Audiobook, eBook