The Sum of Trifles (eBook)

Julia Ridley Smith (Autor)

eBook Download: EPUB

2021
256 Seiten
University of Georgia Press (Verlag)
978-0-8203-6042-3 (ISBN)

Infos

When Julia Ridley Smiths parents died, they left behind a virtual museum of furniture, books, art, and artifacts. Between the contents of their home, the stock from their North Carolina antiques shop, and the ephemera of two lives lived, Smith faced a monumental task. What would she do with her parents possessions?Smiths wise and moving memoir in essays, The Sum of Trifles, peels back the layers of meaning surrounding specific objects her parents owned, from an eighteenth-century miniature to her fathers prosthetics. A vintage hi-fi provides a view of her often tense relationship with her father, whose love of jazz kindled her own artistic impulse. A Japanese screen embodies her mothers principles of good taste and good manners, while an antebellum quilt prompts Smith to grapple with her familys slaveholding legacy. Along the way, she turns to literature that illuminates how her inheritance shaped her notions of identity and purpose.The Sum of Trifles offers up dark humor and raw feeling, mixed with an erudite streak. Its a curious, thoughtful look at how we live in and with our material culture and how we face our losses as we decide what to keep and what to let go.

Produkt-Details

• Erscheint lt. Verlag: 30.11.2021
• Reihe/Serie: Crux: The Georgia Series in Literary Nonfiction Ser.
• Reihe/Serie: Crux: The Georgia Series in Literary Nonfiction Ser.
• Zusatzinfo: 1 b&w image
• Sprache: englisch
• Themenwelt: Literatur ► Biografien / Erfahrungsberichte
• Themenwelt: Literatur ► Romane / Erzählungen
• Themenwelt: Sachbuch/Ratgeber ► Geschichte / Politik
• Themenwelt: Sozialwissenschaften ► Soziologie ► Mikrosoziologie
• Schlagworte: aging parents • Autobiography • Bereavement • Childhood • Creative Writing • dark humor • Death • Essays • Family • grief literature • Inheritance • Literature • Loss • Loss of a parent • Parents • personal memoir • relationships • the south • University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill • University of North Carolina, Greensboro
• ISBN-10: 0-8203-6042-2 / 0820360422
• ISBN-13: 978-0-8203-6042-3 / 9780820360423