Post #21 – Women’s Memoirs, Book Raves – Matilda Butler and Kendra Bonnett
A new memoir of considerable interest to women writing their memoirs is Bending Toward the Sun by Leslie Gilbert-Lurie. Leslie’s life and her book message are intricately linked. Her mother, who survived two years in an attic in a small Polish village in order to avoid capture and probable death by Nazis, wanted her family’s story told.
Leslie, on the other hand, had seen the intergenerational impact of that story on her own life and even the life of her daughter. She knew the separation anxiety she and her daughter felt, her feelings of deep sadness, and her acceptance that life is unpredictable and can be short were all part of her mother’s legacy that continues to work it’s way through the family.
But that’s just half the story because Leslie also received a positive legacy from her mother — a determination to make the world a better place, a sense of the ability to survive, and a desire to make the most of each day.
Keeping the end goal in mind allowed Leslie to interview her mother and other family survivors, to visit the small village in Poland, to read and research the history of World War II, and eventually to write this important mother and daughter memoir. Her end goal? To help others see through this particular story the importance of taking care of children who endure traumatic experiences including war and poverty. Without special efforts at rebuilding the lives of children, they pass their traumas on to future generations.
What does a memoirist learn from reading Bending Toward the Sun? I suggest there are at least two major lessons in Leslie’s memoir. First, define your message as that will help to sharpen your story. The message is what you want the reader to take away with her. In reading this memoir you’ll see that you don’t need to beat readers on the head to get your message across. You want your message to be part of the “show, don’t tell” style of writing.
Second, if you are considering writing your memoir with another family member, then Bending Toward the Sun becomes one model to study. The first half of the book is Leslie’s mother’s story. Leslie interviewed her mother extensively and wrote it in her mother’s voice. Then the second half of the book is Leslie’s own story and is written from her perspective. There are other ways of handling a family story, but Leslie has executed this approach beautifully.
