Welcome to Litsy!

I‘m in audiobook-hangover mode (after The Only Plane in the Sky) so everything I‘ve listened to since seems lacking. I did enjoy this and was reminded a bit of Inheritance (tagged), which I loved. A memoir from Carmen Rita Wong about her unconventional upbringing, due to her mother‘s choices. The author wrestles with questions about who her father really is, how to deal with the lies her life was built upon, and the meaning of family.

Raw vulnerability of dogged hope and an inextinguishable desire to know the truth.
“When you bury the truth, you bury it alive”. Carmen Rita Wong.
An emotionally charged and barrier breaking memoir.
An unflinchingly raw and provocative deep dive into finding Carmen, a child of immigrants inherited navigating life in a very white world battling a very hypocritical American society filled with racism, colorism and patriarchy.

If you read the copy with the pictures in the middle, wait to look at them / read the captions until you finish, they really should be at the end (but I‘m guessing it‘s a printing limitation). This is good, I wasn‘t amazed but I liked the story. It took me a long time to finish.

This was not exactly the page-turning uncovering of a family secret I was expecting, though there is some of that. Carmen Rita Wong reckons with a whole lot in this memoir—trust, truth, belonging, identity, culture, race—and she‘s angry (with very good reason). A worthwhile read.

#Bookmail on this disgustingly hot Monday. I heard Carmen Rita Wong talking about her new memoir on NPR last week. Sounds great. I enjoyed Magee‘s previous novel, The Undertaking, so looking forward to her newest. And ordered the backlist Rebecca Wait after @squirrelbrain reviewed I'm Sorry You Feel That Way.

Helen, let me know whenever you feel like diving in to Our Fathers and I‘ll try to do the same. No rush!