Object-ives #16: The Inheritance I Bought
A dead woman’s milk glass collection became the family heirloom I never had
Book Review of a Well-trained wife: My escape from christian patriarchy
Tia Levings’s powerful memoir, A Well-Trained Wife: My Escape from Christian Patriarchy, delivers a searing critique of patriarchal religious systems through the lens of her own harrowing journey. As a Gen X survivor of religious fundamentalism, Levings provides a revealing window into the oppressive structures of Christian patriarchy, offering both personal testimony and broader cultural commentary. […]
Between Memory and Geography: Julie Brill’s Hidden in Plain Sight
A few words by the author: Brill’s Hidden in Plain Sight is not a conventional Holocaust memoir; rather, it is an act of literary cartography – mapping the landscapes of exile, inherited trauma, and historical erasure. She takes readers on a journey through Belgrade, where her family’s history is embedded in its streets and architecture, and where memory itself is both visible and hidden in the spaces between past and present.
Bubbe’s Potato Latke Grater
Want to listen to the article? Great–listen here! My grandmother was a Holocaust survivor and refugee who, after the war, was given a choice of three destinations. She chose the United States and settled in Brooklyn, where her brother already lived. There she built a new life, working as an office cleaner and raising my mother. […]
On Guinevere Turner’s “When the World Didn’t End”
Want to listen to the article? Great–listen here! ON JANUARY 5, 1975, when Guinevere Turner was seven, the world was supposed to end. She grabbed her favorite toy and donned a fancy dress, but the spaceship to take Turner to Venus never arrived. Turner’s new memoir, When the World Didn’t End, follows her life as she grows […]
‘Uncultured’: The Intergenerational Trauma of Girls Growing up in Cults
Want to listen to the article? Great–listen here! Daniella Mestyanek Young’s powerfully immersive and exceptionally honest debut memoir Uncultured opens with a scene of Young standing in line to get spanked by Uncle Zephaniah. This man is not her blood uncle, but what the kids in the Children of God cult call the men in […]
Embracing Challenges: A Review of Ain’t That a Mother: Postpartum, Palsy, and Everything in Between
Want to listen to the article? Great–listen here! Purchase Adiba Nelson’s debut memoir, Ain’t That a Mother: Postpartum, Palsy, and Everything in Between, for the book jacket alone and clutch it under your arm like you would your prized handbag, using it as your statement accessory. The cover is gorgeous and girly—cotton-candy pink with a gold-horned unicorn piñata. People […]
What Adiba Nelson taught me about self-love
Want to listen to the article? Great–listen here! I learned so much from Adiba’s memoir, but mostly I learned the power of staying true to myself. Adiba Nelson, an Afro-Latina mama to 13-year-old Emory, is a retired burlesque performer, TEDx speaker, and disability rights advocate. Her debut memoir “Ain’t That a Mother: Postpartum, Palsy, and […]