Elementor #439
In her memoir Nuala O’Faolain attempts to answer this question. Diagnosed with a terminal illness, looking back she writes “the most useful thing I brought out of my childhood was confidence in reading.” Growing up in County Dublin, one of nine children, her father was a charming, well-known Irish journalist; her mother a beaten-down alcoholic. […]
Elementor #429
In her memoir, Rebecca Solnit explores how she’s worked to find her voice in the violence. Citing her Victorian writing desk, given to her by a friend who was “stabbed fifteen times by an ex-boyfriend to punish her for leaving him.” Her friend survived, but the boyfriend was never prosecuted. Her friend had effectively been […]
Elementor #388
In his memoir, Bill McKibben explains, using the flag, the cross and the station wagon, what went wrong with the values we grew up with, reveals what was missing in our history books, as well as the meaning of patriotism. I first heard Bill McKibben at Occupy Wall Street using the People’s Mic. Again in […]