📗 "A Fifty-Year Silence: Love, War, and a Ruined House in France" by Miranda Richmond Mouillot

At the end of 2023, on a different account, I posted an overview of the most memorable books I had read that year. In a comment @hawksquill was so kind to recommend this book to me. Thank you, I'm glad I read it!

A Fifty-Year Silence can't be forced into a single category. It's partially about the author's grandparents, who survived WW2 as European Jews, and who've come dislike each other enough to avoid each other at all costs. It's a look at what it's like to survive war and how it impacts generations. But it's also a memoir: how is the author researching all of this, and more importantly: why?

I wasn't completely sure how to feel about the text while reading it. At times the author romanticizes her grandparents' lives in ways that are uncomfortable. As her research goes on though, she does reflect on her own motives and habits more. Still, sometimes her family seems like an unwilling participant, especially her grandfather. He only starts sharing his memories earnestly after getting into further stages of dementia.

Is it okay to record history like that? I'm not sure. I deeply feel it's important to save and share these experiences. But I also felt a little like I was prying where I didn't belong, or at least where I wasn't invited.

This book strangely works, with all its contradictions and questions and mysteries that will never really get satisfying answers. As long as you can embrace that, this will be an interesting read.

#AmReading #NonFiction #memoir #books #bookstodon