The Salem Witch Trials are infamous in American history. Nineteen people in Salem were hanged after four young girls accused local women of witchcraft, and things spiraled out of control. Two of the most well-known people from this incident were 12-year-old Ann “Anna” Putnam, Jr., one of the original accusers, and her father, Thomas Putnam, Jr. No one will truly know what was going through their heads during this time, but Greg Houle tries to answer this question in his historical fiction novel, The Putnams of Salem.
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Kelle Groom’s memoir-in-essays, How to Live, is a journey that showcases to the reader exactly what the title suggests: how to live. But it’s living through loss, grief, and pain that Groom really tackles most. As Groom moves across the country, we witness her learning this more than we are told explicitly how to do it. The memoir exemplifies how a writer can use their prose to reflect the content of their work. Groom’s often disjointed mindset as she moves around to new places appears physically on the page in the form of short, staccato sentences, some of which are only a word or two long.
People's experiences from childhood immensely shape the kind of person they may become and can impact their decision-making later on in adulthood. Some children with complicated upbringings often tell themselves they’ll do better than their parents, learning from their mistakes. However, some cycles are harder to break, and those kids can unknowingly become exactly like their parents. In her debut novel, Waiting for Beirut, Rebecca Dimyan explores themes of generational trauma by artfully creating subtle patterns to produce a beautifully tragic narrative.
As a fellow member of the Dead Parent Club™, Stephanie Austin’s Something I Might Say caught my attention because it made me want to compare notes on grief. In this brief collection of nonfiction essays describing an even more brief portion of Austin’s life, she explores the many layers of grief that overwhelmed her in just a few months' time due to back to back losses in her family. If you have experienced significant loss in your life and yearn for someone who can genuinely empathize, not just sympathize, then this collection of bite sized essays is for you.
“We may know the sacred; we may not impart it.”
George Choundas tosses this penetrating sentence seventy-five pages into his collection of essays, Until All You See is Sky. It’s one of the many turns of phrase that will make the reader pause and reflect. This in itself is not so shocking—good writing should, at the bare minimum, have an impact on the reader. What sets Choundas apart from the others, in my opinion, is context. Where this shrewd pronouncement is more befitting a spiritual revelation or a hard-learned life lesson, Choundas has gifted this deep and affecting statement to… baked goods. |
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