Saturday, September 19, 2015

Unspeakable - Meghan Daum


I enjoy browsing the "best pics" that the library puts out right inside the entrance.  This one popped out at me and I'm glad I picked it up.  The author is a Generation Xer, known for her first book "My Misspent Youth".  This is a group of short stories or essays reflecting on her life many years later.

She's unconventional and speaks out on things that aren't normally said out loud (her chapter entitled "Matricide" about her mother's dying is a good example).  She chooses not to have children and reflects at one point on her and her husband feeling sad after she has a miscarriage:

"Were we sad because we lacked some essential element of lifetime partnership, such as a child or agreement about wanting or not wanting one?  Or were we sad because life is just sad sometimes -- maybe even a lot of the time?  Or perhaps it wasn't even sadness we were feeling but, simply, the dull ache of aging?  Maybe children don't save their parents from this ache as much as distract from it.  And maybe creating a diversion from aging turns out to be the whole point of parenting."
It was an interesting read and I'll think I'll look for more of her writing.


Published: 2014   Read: September 2015  Genre: Memoir/Essay

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