I picked up this memoir in the summer of 2020 after listening to an interview with Natasha Trethewey on Fresh Air on NPR (you can find that interview here) and I read it over a long weekend away at the Oregon coast.
Natasha Trethewey is a poet, her writing is beautiful and the elegant way in which she uses language made this story, her family story, heartwarming and heartbreaking all at once.
This memoir was compelling, but it was also very challenging.
More than once I had to close the cover and sit in silence.
I was so glad to be at the ocean when reading this. I always find the ocean to be healing. It was a good place to be quiet with my thoughts.
Just a note, if domestic violence or violence against women is upsetting for you than you may find this difficult to read.
Trethewey grew up in the American South, the child of a Black woman from Mississippi and white man from Canada, during a time and in a place where interracial marriage was far from accepted.
Trethewey spends a fair bit of time bringing her early years to life. I enjoyed reading this section of the book, it was slow and languid, and left me with a sense of her childhood being carefree. She grew up just across the way from her grandparents and spent her days going back and forth between the family homes. Her grandparents house was a central part of her world and she takes great care in bringing this home to life, so much so that I could almost see the kitchen curtains waving in the evening breeze.
At the heart of this memoir is Natasha Trethewey’s mother, Gwen.
Gwen is a woman well ahead of her time. Gwen is a force. Strong yet loving, fearless and open, she values family and loves her daughter deeply, without question.
Trethewey father, a writer and later a professor, was often away while completing his studies, then later he lived apart from the family while teaching at schools distant from the family home. Even so, her father was a positive presence in her life, instilling in her a love of learning and of language. Eventually, her parents divorced, but remained friendly with one another after the divorce.
Once divorced, Trethewey and her mother moved to Atlanta. Her mother earned her master’s degree and really seemed to be enjoying her new life living and working in this vibrant city.
By this time Trethewey was starting her young adult years, finishing high school and looking ahead to college, and, like most teens, not aware of or even interested in her mother’s life.
Her mother started dating and, somewhat surprisingly, quickly married. Even more surprising was Gwen’s pregnancy. Gwen’s family didn’t warm to her new husband and Gwen kept her pregnancy from her for some time. There seem to be secrets or strains in the marriage, but as a young person Trethewey did not understand the situation.
Here is where things took a dark turn.
Later, long after her mother’s murder at the hands of her step-father, Trethewey is in Atlanta. By happenstance runs into a former law enforcement officer in a cafe who recognizes her. He had worked on her mother’s case 20 years earlier.
This chance encounter opens a door.
The former officer remembered seeing Trethewey arrive at the crime scene so many years earlier when she was just a young woman. Now, a district attorney, he offers Trethewey court documents from her mother’s case that are set to be destroyed.
It is from these documents that Trethewey is able to piece together the final portions of her mother’s life.
Reading about this chance encounter gave me goosebumps. Even now, a year after I finished reading this memoir, I think about how many things had to aline for this meeting to have happened. I think about how this former officer must have carried this story with him, holding on to that image of a young daughter arriving at the scene where her mother lost her life. Had they not crossed paths, had they not struck up a conversation, had he not remembered her Trethewey likely never would have learned about her mother’s life.
The court records include interview notes between her mother and the police.
Trethewey discovered that her had pursued domestic violence charges against her step-father and that she had agreed to record her conversations with him to use as evidence even though she feared for her safety.
There is a transcript of a recording of a conversation between Gwen and Trethewey’s step-father in the days before her murder that is chilling.
The transcript was very frightening to read.
It’s hard to even imagine how a daughter would feel seeing her mother’s words, likely hearing her mother’s voice, as this conversating unfolded in typeface across pages.
I read this book quickly, it’s a slim book, but there were some passages that I sat with for hours, setting the book down to hold back tears and sit with the weight of the story.
This is a beautiful and powerful story.
My Rating 4/5
The Seventeenth Line 