Dust

by Summer Brenner

Genres: Memoir

280 pages, Paperback

Published January 31, 2024

About the author

Summer Brenner was raised in Atlanta, Georgia. She moved north, east, and eventually west, taking up residence in Berkeley where she has been a long-time resident.

Her writing has appeared in dozens of anthologies and literary magazines. Performances of her work include "The Flood," a poem for four voices at Links Hall, Chicago; The Missing Lover, a one-act play, with readings directed by Peter Glazer; and the poetry and musical extravaganza, Arundo (with Summer Brenner, Andy Dinsmoor, Bob Ernst, Hal Hughes, and GP Skratz). She has given scores of readings in the United States, France, and Japan. Grant awards include the California Arts Council, the Creative Work Fund, and in partnership with Community Works, The Christensen Fund and Lesher Foundation.

Currently, she works on literacy projects in Richmond, California. She is author of more than ten books of poetry and fiction.

Anthologies include:
American Poetry Since 1970: Up Late; American Poets Say Good-Bye to the 20th Century; Cradle and All; Deep Down: New Sensual Writing by Women; The Erotic Impulse; Rising Tides: 20th Century Women Poets; The Stiffest of the Corpse; The Unmade Bed; Wreckage of Reason: Anthology of XXperimental Women Writers Writing in the 21st Century, et al.

Reviews

[David Schein · Rating 5 out of 5]

Dust: A left-hook to the heart: When you start Summer Brenner's "Dust" you might think, oh, this going be an interesting memoire of a Jewish girl from Atlanta, an exotic species to an East Coast Jewish guy like myself, much like a fragrant gardenia in a garden full of matzoh-ball sized Brooklyn-bred roses: "What, are there Jews down there? How exotic!" But as you go deeper and deeper through the chapters, meeting Summer's family, her narcissistic mother, her perpetual `failure'; of a father, and central to the story, her mentally ill brother, the thorns on this flower of this memoire begin to draw blood. This is Summer's memoire of "normal" family tragedy; normal in that there is no murder, no outward child abuse, just a life of slow emotional death, of masks and keeping up appearances, as the thundering din of what cannot be mentioned drowns out famial love and the possibility of healing. As a writer myself I cannot imagine portraying my family with such honesty. The sentences are short in this book. It is a Chekovian story told with a hammer. If you seek catharsis - read "Dust". Read it with a hankie, preferably perfumed and embroidered. And warning: it has a happy ending.

[Michael Harris · Rating 5 out of 5]

Those who have read Summer Brenner's poetry, fiction and memoirs over the years have a rough idea of her life, which to my mind has been a triumphant one. Growing up in an affluent but troubled Jewish family in Atlanta during the segregated 1950s, she decided early on to choose freedom over safety and comfort. She left the South, traveled in Europe and Latin America, settled in the San Francisco Bay Area at the height of the counterculture, raised a family and forged a career of art and progressive politics despite "my drudge jobs, my acceptance of a kind of voluntary poverty."

Brenner's determination to be free had other costs, which she explores painfully and clearly in her latest memoir, "Dust" (Spuyten Duyvil Press). Her younger brother, David, was schizophrenic. Their neurotic fashion plate of a mother long refused to admit there was anything wrong with him, and after his breakdown and diagnosis she tried to control every aspect of his life in shoddy nursing homes. Summer saw little of David for 30 years, until their mother died. "Then, though a series of events, both calamitous and miraculous, David came to live with me."

In the first half of the book, Brenner describes her family before she left it, including the suicide of her beloved father, an artistic, enlightened man who watched the KKK parade down Atlanta's streets and bravely crossed the color line to fraternize with Black people -- he may even have led a double life -- but who drank too much and seemed unable to make money. He should have left the South too, Brenner says, and in a sense she did it for him, but at the price of abandoning David.

By the time he moves in with Brenner's family in Berkeley, David already has the cancer that will eventually kill him, so time is limited and urgent issues remain: Can her family accept his oddities? If so, can he realize that here are people who accept him as he is? Can she possibly make amends, and what form can those take? In the simplest, most direct prose imaginable, she shows how David blossoms == becomes, in her word, "holy" -- in his last months. Or maybe the real change is in those around him. Maybe it's just that David is properly seen at last, no longer as a curse or a burden or an obligation. Used to expecting little or nothing from the world, he only asks: "I had a crappy life. I don't want a crappy death."

[Laura Chester · Rating 5 out of 5]

DUST is a truly remarkable book, and one of my favorites
by author Summer Brenner. This amazing, non-fiction
account of growing up Jewish in Atlanta with a glamorous,
radical, suicidal father, and a extremely difficult, narcissistic
mother, unfolds around the relationship
between brother and sister. David, Summer's younger
brother, has lifelong, serious mental impairments, and
their connection throughout his troubled life is extremely
moving, especially when he comes to spend his final
days in the Bay Area with her. While the story line itself
is magnetic, the writing itself is pristine, and that in itself
is a joy for any reader. I can only highly recommend this
book, whether you are Jewish or not-- that
does not matter so much, as this is a human story that
should touch us all.

[Deborah Beatriz Blum · Rating 5 out of 5]

If, like me, you are a Jew who has wondered what life was like for Jews growing up in the South during the 1950 and 60s, then DUST will answer every question you ever had, and many you weren’t even aware of. From the very first page I found myself immersed in a rich world and a disquieting family dynamic, every bit as neurotic as what I was accustomed to growing up in Beverly Hills. Summer Brenner’s style is simple yet powerful, just the way I like it. Her willingness to probe family relationships and her ability to give voice to the girl she was and the woman she became is quite astonishing. During the day I found myself looking forward to the time, later in the evening, when I could return to her story. DUST is a book I highly recommend!

[Curiousg · Rating 5 out of 5]

An absorbing page turner of a memoir ... Summer Brenner takes us on a globe trotting adventure wherein she blazed her own trail which produced an extraordinary Poet-Rebel-Lover. Every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way ... and the hand dealt in this case foreshadowed likely tragedy and despair. Yet through unusual twists and turns and an indefatigable spirit we witness moving transformation. The forging of a loving sibling bond is particularly moving. As Leonard Cohen puts it: there is a crack in everything .. that's how the light gets in. This memoir shines a bright light indeed.

[Ava · Rating 5 out of 5]

This memoir caught me off guard in the best way. I fell in love with David, his singing, his humor, his sensitivity, the way he moved through the world with defiance and fragility. Summer writes about her brother with such intimacy and restraint that his death felt like a personal loss. The same is true for their father and I realized only after the fact how carefully she’d led me there. Dust doesn’t announce itself as heartbreaking, but it is. It’s also tender, funny, and full of quiet beauty. I couldn’t put it down

[Deborah Clearman · Rating 5 out of 5]

A deeply moving memoir of the author's fraught relationships with her mentally ill brother and their problematic mother. Evocative of the tumultuous times she lived in. What brings the story alive is the hypnotic voice of the narrator. Short, declarative, sometimes repetitive sentences ring like an incantation, drawing the reader deeper and deeper into the emotional core of the family. A powerful and ultimately loving tribute to family and survival.

[Carol · Rating 5 out of 5]

In Dust, Brenner has written a beautifully poignant memoir detailing her complex relationships with her mother, her brother and herself. I found myself deeply moved by the stories in this book. I highly recommended it to anyone who is interested in a heartfelt honest telling of family, loss, and inspiration.

[Ella Baff]

Buy this book! It flows start to finish with vivid characters, stories within stories, and memories of times and places that make deep sense out of life that doesn't always make sense. I found the book moving.

[Reader · Rating 5 out of 5]

Summer Brenner’s memoir tells the story of her family. It’s a story about love and loss and beautifully, gently describes the ways in which feeling and knowing arrive separately in our lives, but arrive nonetheless. Thoughtful, moving, and humane.

[Mimi · Rating 5 out of 5]

Heart touching