Yet More Memoirs: By Vicki Laveau-Harvie and Natasha Trethewey

Two more memoirs that I have recently read are powerful and painful. Vicki Laveau-Harvie’s “The Erratics” (Knopf, 2020) tells of an extremely dysfunctional family. The two adult children of a delusional and dangerous mother and a cowed, abused father are called back to their parents’ home in a cold and isolated area of Canada when their mother is sick and their father is starving. They feel obligated to help their elderly parents, but all the old destructive patterns are still there. The sisters’ work for their parents is heroic, given their extremely difficult childhoods. Readers are forced to confront wrenching questions of family and history and loyalty. Natasha Trethewey’s “Memorial Drive: A Daughter’s Memoir” (Ecco, 2020) is tragic in a different way, but still related to family. The author’s former stepfather shoots and kills her beloved mother, and the nineteen-year-old is left to wrestle with the emotional devastation this violent event leaves in its wake. The author writes of her family’s history, and of how she has tried to move forward. Race (the author is biracial) and domestic abuse are themes throughout. But so, blessedly, is the place of the arts in our lives. The author is a Pulitzer Prize-winning poet and a former U.S. poet laureate, and her poetic prose is a beautiful feature of this short, intense memoir.