A Memoir Of Absence

For readers of H Is for Hawk, an intimate memoir of belonging and loss and a mesmerizing travelogue through the landscapes and language of Wales Hiraeth is a Welsh word that's famously hard to translate. Literally, it can mean "long field" but generally translates into English, inadequately, as "homesickness." At heart, hiraeth suggests something like a bone-deep longing for an irretrievable place, person, or time—an acute awareness of the presence of absence. In The Long Field, Pamela Petro braids essential hiraeth stories of Wales with tales from her own life—as an American who found an ancient home in Wales, as a gay woman, as the survivor of a terrible AMTRAK train crash, and as the daughter of a parent with dementia. Through the pull and tangle of these stories and her travels throughout Wales, hiraeth takes on radical new meanings. There is traditional hiraeth of place and home, but also queer hiraeth; and hiraeth triggered by technology, immigration, ecological crises, and our new divisive politics. On this journey, the notion begins to morph from a uniquely Welsh experience to a universal human condition, from deep longing to the creative responses to loss that Petro sees as the genius of Welsh culture. It becomes a tool to understand ourselves in our time. A finalist for the Wales Book of the Year Award and named to the Telegraph's and Financial Times's Top 10 lists for travel writing, The Long Field is an unforgettable exploration of “the hidden contours of the human heart.”

Ever since Salinger, nine seems to be a magic number when it comes to rendering debut short story collections. Frederic Colier’s A Memoir of Absence is no exception. Embarking on an evocative journey through the heartland of our own delusions, Colier’s terse prose guides us beyond the barren cultural plane of our all-too-malleable American dreams taking us into a realm of intellectual urgency, linguistic renewal, and eventual hope. Here – where relativist cant, contemporary platitudes, and even shocking news become no more than the white noise of a fleeting civilization – there is nothing more alarming than the ensuing silence left by those collisions that never get the chance to take place: In the title story, an estranged father and son are each relegated their own brand of dystopia only to find that it is their respective torments that ineffably bind them to one another. While one pursues impossible love around the globe, the other tries making sense of the void surrounding him. Oddly, it is their parallel misfortunes that find shelter in the harmonious space of absence recalled. Similarly, Lipstick on the Fishbowl depicts how grief often blinds one from seeing the object of loss. As a bereaved businessman searches for the proper way to express loss for his departed wife, he begins to overlook the significance of her passing. As for those in throes of jealousy misreading even the best of intentions, The Depth of Swimming Pool is a somber portrayal of a woman who – in her state of constant apprehension – ends up undermining that which she most desires. But whether it is observers dreaming of becoming participants, or the emotionally alienated hordes for whom pain becomes a final solace, the terrain traversed by Colier’s nine stories is neither one that would fill a postcard nor one that sports the trendy wasteland so readily employed by our time’s countdown artists. As the lonely overweight opera singer Josephina considers the abject proposals of a sexless man, or the abused young woman in Cristianos y Moros finally returns home to confront her dismissive parents, we note with relief that Colier’s intention is not to flesh out some vague musings about our era but to attend to those who straddle the crossroads of a world where choosing a direction is no longer a value in itself. If there is a poignancy to be had, A Memoir of Absence says we’re to find it in those uncertain moments when event is temporarily subsumed by interpretation. This does not mean that observations made by characters are lucid or objective. On the contrary, it is our vulnerability to catch phrases, our compromised visions, and our pathos while estimating our own suffering hearts that bring integrity to our lives. Colier’s short stories are the fragments of a lost anthem – the disparate melodies that once made up what we mystically referred to as, the human spirit.

Winner of the 2012 National Translation Award “What Sinan [Antoon] has done with In the Presence of Absence is a kind of miraculous work of dedication and love. Reading this volume is sheer enjoyment and sublimity.” —Saadi Yousef “There are two maps of Palestine that politicians will never manage to forfeit: the one kept in the memories of Palestinian refugees, and that which is drawn by Darwish’s poetry.” —Anton Shammas One of the most transcendent poets of his generation, Darwish composed this remarkable elegy at the apex of his creativity, but with the full knowledge that his death was imminent. Thinking it might be his final work, he summoned all his poetic genius to create a luminous work that defies categorization. In stunning language, Darwish’s self-elegy inhabits a rare space where opposites bleed and blend into each other. Prose and poetry, life and death, home and exile are all sung by the poet and his other. On the threshold of im/mortality, the poet looks back at his own existence, intertwined with that of his people. Through these lyrical meditations on love, longing, Palestine, history, friendship, family, and the ongoing conversation between life and death, the poet bids himself and his readers a poignant farewell.

Betty O’Neill grew up knowing very little about her father, Antoni. She knew that he had fled Poland after World War Two, that he had disappeared overnight when she was just an infant, and that his brief reappearance when she was a young adult had been a harrowing, painful ordeal. Fifty-five years after he deserted her family, Betty is determined to find out more. What drove him to abandon them, twice? What was his story? Who was Antoni Jagielski? Her search for truth takes Betty to Poland, where she unexpectedly inherits a family apartment from the half sister she never knew – a time capsule of her father’s life. Sifting through photos and letters she begins to piece together a picture of her father as a Polish resistance fighter, a survivor of Auschwitz and Gusen concentration camps, an exile in post-war England, and a migrant to Australia. But the deeper she searches, the darker the revelations about her father become, as Betty is faced with disturbing truths buried within her family. Honest, compelling, and meticulously researched, The Other Side of Absence is an elegant debut memoir of resilience and strength, and of a daughter reconciling the damage that families inherit from war.

"Of beach plums, ramps, and Ramada Inns: a quietly sensitive eminently sensible consideration of the landscapes of our lives . . . A gift." —Kirkus Reviews Following her bestselling The Architect of Desire, Suzannah Lessard returns with a remarkable book, a work of relentless curiosity and a graceful mixture of observation and philosophy. This intriguing hybrid will remind some of W. G. Sebald’s work and others of Rebecca Solnit’s, but it is Lessard’s singular talent to combine this profound book–length mosaic— a blend of historical travelogue, reportorial probing, philosophical meditation, and prose poem—into a work of unique genius, as she describes and reimagines our landscapes. In this exploration of our surroundings, The Absent Hand contends that to reimagine landscape is a form of cultural reinvention. This engrossing work of literary nonfiction is a deep dive into our surroundings—cities, countryside, and sprawl—exploring change in the meaning of place and reimagining the world in a time of transition. Whether it be climate change altering the meaning of nature, or digital communications altering the nature of work, the effects of global enclosure on the meaning of place are panoramic, infiltrative, inescapable. No one will finish this book, this journey, without having their ideas of living and settling in their surroundings profoundly enriched.

"Outside the window I could just make out the train tracks lit by the full moon. But I couldn't keep my eyes open. That delicious sleepiness that only a child feels after a long day of playing outside or visiting distant relatives or encountering unusual places--that total fatigue abated my normal fear of the nightmare. As I drifted off, I heard the whistle blow; and I wondered about the people on that train. Where are they going? Why did they leave? Who are they leaving behind?My father had left. Me. I was left behind.".Sandra's book, "Fatherless: A Memoir of Acceptance and Forgiveness," is about growing up as a child of divorced parents in the 1950s. After her parents' divorce, six-year-old Sandra Frye is haunted by a disturbing dream night after night. Searching for the meaning of the nightmare over the next sixty years, Sandra yearns for the nuclear family she felt cheated out of by an emotionally distant mother and an absent father. Sandra's raw account of her long struggle will draw you into the mind of a sensitive child who carried the scars of divorce into adulthood. Frye's journey to understand herself, as well as human relationships, takes her on a path with many detours, a road full of fear and longing. Will she discover that education and religion are a help or a hindrance? Will she overcome her mistrust of men and her need for approval? Will she ever be able to accept and forgive?Sandra Frye addresses the sad but ultimately empowering effects of divorce when she confronts her demons and acknowledges her angels.Sandra Frye is a retired English teacher who lives in Madison, Wisconsin. After teaching for thirty years, Sandra can finally enjoy practicing the art of creative writing. Frye has four sons and six grandchildren. She has written two books and is currently working on a third. She is also working on her first book of poetry.Her first book, "African Dreams: A Memoir of Service and Salvation," is about teaching English with the Peace Corps in Malawi, East Africa, from 1969 to 1971. Following a lifelong dream to teach and serve others, twenty-three-year-old Sandra Frye served alongside her husband in what was called "the hard luck post," in a small secondary school on remote Likoma Island. Sandra relied on her desire to help others while battling loneliness, lack of companionship, and too many snakes to count. Relying on her passion for teaching and the trips off the island for renewed energy, Frye discovered salvation in the friendship of two small Malawian boys--Goodwin and Hastings.From the first page, you will be drawn into this unique and inspiring travel memoir about love, loss, and redemption. The unexpected kinship between people of vastly different ages and cultures lies at the heart of this journey, offering hope that the search for peace is not in vain."Over the years, I've edited many memoirs, and this is hands down one of my favorites. The story didn't end on the last page; it plays over and over in my mind every single day. I consider Sandra"s book a life-changing book for me; it's one of the few." Christin Perry, Editor

"Richard Widerkehr's In the Presence of Absence is a book of loss and recovery, grief and wonder. These are poems informed with clarity and compassion, and a quiet lyricism in confronting the mortal world, the death of parents, and life-threatening illness." --Joseph Stroud. author of Of This World: New and Selected Poems

A missing daughter, her distraught mother. A foreign country. A history of deceit. When Dee's daughter, Corrie, decides to spend her gap year in Argentina, it seems like the perfect solution to their strained relationship. That is, until Corrie goes missing. Facing every mother's worst nightmare, Dee boards a plane from Australia to launch a frantic search. Four years later, Dee returns to Buenos Aires for what she concedes may be the last time. But on this visit, a fresh lead triggers a new search - one where Dee must place her trust in strangers to help her navigate the vibrant but often threatening city. Dee's search for Corrie is overshadowed by the fear that her failings as a mother may have had something to do with Corrie's disappearance. To what extent is Dee to blame? And is this a question that she will ever be able to answer? Traces of Absence is a stirring and thoughtful portrayal of parenthood, guilt, faith and hope. And of the redemptive power of simple human kindness.