Ancestor Trouble received a starred review from Kirkus! “The current wave of interest in genealogy, heredity, family history, and responsibility for past injustices crescendos in a comprehensive work combining personal narrative and reporting,” the reviewer says. “Exhaustively researched, engagingly presented, and glowing with intelligence and honesty.” ⭐️ This part made me laugh out loud in recognition: “These ruptures seeded a project . . .
The days are growing shorter, the trees on the land across the way will soon shed the last of their leaves, and I have been reading the poems of W.S. Merwin and the fiction of Lauren Groff, and teaching myself how to write essays again.
Supply chain issues are hitting books hard, and if there are new ones you’d like to order for yourself or as gifts for the holidays, it sounds like it would be a good idea to place the orders now. Here are a few of the new books I love (and have mentioned in recent newsletters), if you’re not sure where . . .
Some letters we found in my granny’s papers after she died record the fallout from my grandfather Robert’s affair. Ultimately, Robert was said to have married thirteen times. Granny’s marriage to him, his fourth of those I’ve found, lasted about four and a half years. Knowing her later intolerance for foolishness, I’m surprised she put up with him for that . . .
This website has undergone a complete redesign for the first time since it launched in 2002, almost two decades ago. Eep! I adore this iteration so much that I’m hoping to blog more often, if only to spend more time looking at it. All thanks to Lorissa Shepstone and Gordon Clemmons, the brilliant Being Wicked team. Late last week I . . .