Skip to main content
PBS logo
 
 

Book Review of Memorial Drive: A Daughter's Memoir

Memorial Drive: A Daughter's Memoir
VolunteerVal avatar reviewed on + 641 more book reviews
Helpful Score: 2


âDo you know what it means to have a wound that never heals?â
- Memorial Drive by Natasha Trethewey

Memorial Drive is a daughter's memoir written by Natasha Trethewey, Pulitzer Prize-winning poet and two-time poet laureate of the United States.

The word count of this book is inversely proportionate to the impact of the author's prose. In only 224 pages, Ms. Trethewey shares memories of her childhood, reflects on her biracial identity, shares the emotional and psychological abuse inflicted by her stepfather, and includes transcripts of phone conversations between her mother and her stepfather that occurred less than 48 hours before he murdered her.

I wanted to quickly consume this compelling memoir while simultaneously reading slowly to appreciate every carefully chosen word. Because the author and I are the same age, I felt a special connection to her and the comparisons and contrasts to her childhood in rural Mississippi and mine in rural Nebraska.