I carried other people's stories with me to feel less alone with my own questions. From my youngest years as a serious reader, I loved books on these themes. At the same time, though, I'd always puzzled and sometimes agonized over the ways traits and tendencies seemed to repeat in families, over the ways unacknowledged trauma tended to beget more trauma. Being intimately familiar with the dysfunction of my immediate family, having lived through those experiences, I imagined that writing about my family would feel like being locked in a tiny room with the problems of my upbringing. I'd always been fascinated around the edges of the book, but the idea of writing about my people was slow to take hold. In her own words, here is Maud Newton's Book Notes music playlist for her memoir Ancestor Trouble:Īncestor Trouble is about my own ancestors, and about the significance of ancestors more broadly, from our times back through the millennia. She’s a transparent and at times lyrical writer.' 'Newton is a logical thinker and a hyperacute observer, with a prodigious memory and a lacerating honesty. In Maud Newton's smart and readable memoir Ancestor Trouble, she researches her family tree to expose universal truths. Boyle, Dana Spiotta, Amy Bloom, Aimee Bender, Roxane Gay, and many others. Previous contributors include Jesmyn Ward, Lauren Groff, Bret Easton Ellis, Celeste Ng, T.C. In the Book Notes series, authors create and discuss a music playlist that relates in some way to their recently published book.

Ancestor trouble book review