A collection of essays by Tuscarora writer Alicia Elliott. I’ve encountered her writing online from time to time in the last few years and thought highly of it every time, so I was very excited to hear she had a debut collection coming out. I was not disappointed. These essays are strongly grounded in memoir, deftly using that resource (and others) to peel back layers of the world. I’m just writing a chapter myself at the moment that is in part thinking through how careful listening to people talking about their lives can tell us far more than we usually realize not only about the people who are speaking but about power and about how the world works, and this felt like an excellent illustration of that point. Uncompromising. Sharp. Vulnerable. Well-written. Plain-spoken not in any sense meant to denigrate the craft involved, but rather to convey a certain matter-of-fact bluntness – this is how things are, yes it is often painful, no there is no use sugar coating it. For some reason it did read to me quite clearly as a *first* collection, again not meant as a comment on craft but more as an observation about the scope and shape of the ground covered and elements of life-history explored. I look forward to what she does in her next book, and the next, and the next!
Originally posted by Scott on Goodreads.