The more you uncover them, the harder it is to celebrate. But there’s an inherent risk in putting too much emotional stock in one’s ancestry. That’s probably one reason for our current ancestry craze, which often takes the form of highly publicized and often rather formulaic memoirs, movies, and TV shows that are advertised as “celebrating” how a person’s ancestral past informs their present. She was discussing a specific sort of person, though: an attentive writer, someone who would “never be ashamed of staring.” Being a member of a family often means staring like a wide-eyed child it also means that your relatives’ stories, histories, and beliefs will inevitably shape your own whether or not you want them to. Random House, 400 pages.įlannery O’Connor, who knew something about poisoned historical legacies, once wrote that anyone who survived their childhood already has enough information about life to last the rest of their days. Ancestor Trouble: A Reckoning and a Reconciliation by Maud Newton.
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