“When I decided to write about my brother and friends, I was attempting to answer the question why. Why did they all die like that? Why so many of them? Why so close together? Why were they all so young? Why, especially, in the kinds of places where we are from? Why would they all die back to back to back to back? I feel like I was writing my way towards an answer in the memoir.” WayFeelsWritingKindTogetherYoungDiesAnswersBrotherDecidedMemoirMy WayMy BrotherAttempting Author:Jesmyn Ward
“I've also never written about home in this way before. I guess a lot of it is subconscious and I am intuitively making these decisions when I'm writing. I wanted to communicate in the book that on one hand, being at home - both in our homes and in DeLisle - gives us a sense of belonging and family and safety, but at the same time, being in those places makes us less safe.” WayGivingWritingBookHomeHandsWantedDecisionWrittenSafeSafetyCommunicateBelongingSubconscious Author:Jesmyn Ward
“When you have a family, even though you might move a lot, you collect all of these things. It's the detritus of your family and they become the symbols of your family life, and your unit out in the world. In that moment I wanted to allude to the fact that the way my parents' relationship was falling apart was impacting me and my brother, my parents, but also our symbols.” WorldWayMomentsFactsMightWantedMovingFallParentBrotherSymbolsOur FamilyMy BrotherThat MomentUnitsFalling ApartFamily Life Author:Jesmyn Ward
“Through the process of specifically writing this memoir, there was so much reckoning that I had to do. It was very difficult. It doesn't erase anything that happened, but I think that it was healthy for me to do it. The teenage self-loathing that I suffered from all of a sudden found itself turned into rapids with my grief after my brother died. I turned it inwards. In the same way that my mom processes her grief and her problems. This project, as a memoir, has helped me funnel it outwards.” ThinkingWayWritingSelfProblemFoundProcessDifficultGriefHappenedBrotherMomHealthyProjectsDiedMy MomMemoirMy BrotherTeenageRapidsEraseLoathingSelf LoathingReckoningBrother DiedMy Brother Died Author:Jesmyn Ward
“When I was writing the memoir, every page was a battle with myself because I knew I had to tell the truth. That's what the memoir form demands. I also had to figure out how much of the truth do I tell, how do I make the truth as balanced as I possibly can? How do I make these people as complicated and as human and as unique and as multifaceted as I possibly can? For me, that was the way I attempted to counteract some of that criticism.” PeopleWayWritingHumansFormFiguresBattleDemandPagesUniqueCriticismComplicatedMemoirTelling The TruthBalanced Author:Jesmyn Ward
“I want each character to be as unique as possible. I want them to reflect something of who they are in the way that they move and in how their bodies work. That was foremost in my head when I was writing Salvage: I wanted every gesture, every little movement, to really carry meaning and communicate meaning to the reader. I was very conscious of that when I was writing.” WayWantWritingLittlesCharacterBodyWantedMovingMovementReaderUniqueConsciousCommunicateGesturesSalvageBody Work Author:Jesmyn Ward
“Grief doesn't fade. Grief scabs over like my scars and pulls into new, painful configurations as it knits. It hurts in new ways. We are never free from grief.” WaySufferingHurtGriefSorrowPainfulScarFadesNew WaysIt HurtsConfigurationScabs Book:Men We Reaped: A Memoir Source: Men We Reaped: A Memoir
“My mom worked as a housekeeper, and I saw her relationship with her employers - how on the one hand she spent more time with these women than with a lot of her friends, and how in certain ways they were friends. But then they weren't.” WayHandsCertainSawsMomMy MomMore TimeEmployersHousekeepers Author:Jesmyn Ward
