Personal Effects: Essays on Memoir, Teaching, and Culture in the Work of Louise DeSalvo

Cultural Studies in Italian America

by Nancy Caronia (Editor), Edvige Giunta (Editor)

A lucid view of one of the most important Italian American female authors of our time, Louise DeSalvo.

Celebrating one of the most important Italian American female authors of our time, Personal Effects offers a lucid view of Louise DeSalvo as a writer who has produced a vast and provocative body of memoir writing, a scholar who has enriched our understanding of Virginia Woolf, and a teacher who has transformed countless lives. More than an anthology, Personal Effects represents an author case study and an example for modern Italian American interdisciplinary scholarship.

Personal Effects examines DeSalvo’s memoirs as works that push the boundaries of the most controversial genre of the past few decades. In these works, the author fearlessly explores issues such as immigration, domesticity, war, adultery, illness, mental health, sexuality, the environment, and trauma through the lens of gender, ethnic, and working-class identity. Alongside her groundbreaking scholarship, DeSalvo’s memoirs attest to the power and influence of this feminist Italian American writer.

Genres: Ebooks, Nonfiction

288 pages, Hardcover

First published October 15, 2014

Reviews

[Julene · Rating 5 out of 5]

"Personal Effects" is a book filled with wonderful essays that highlight and acknowledge Louise DeSalvo's many contributions. She leaves a legacy in education, memoir, literature, Italian history, writing, feminism, and the list goes on. I had the great luck to discover Louise when I started my undergraduate studies at Hunter College in the 80s. After one class with her I signed up every semester to her classes, she never taught the same thing twice. Studying with Louise was a gift I will always treasure. A Virginia Woolf scholar, she deconstructed Woolf's first book, "The Passage Out," in a library in London she went to pages to sort out drafts based on water print in pages of letters that matched pages of the work in process. She began to see Woolf's writing work was set in the context of an active life and how they intersected. She dug down to find that first draft and the initial title and that book was published as "Melymbrosia." Louise was the first to write about Woolf's early sexual abuse.

Essays are divided into three sections: Memoir, Teaching, Cultural. Each writer takes on an aspect of her work. Louise wrote 21 books in her lifetime, starting with her work with Virginia Woolf, expanding to writers who wrote out of revenge, adultery, and several memoirs that went deep into her families history including the struggles of Italian Americans migrating to this new country, plus the anthologies she edited and her blog. Eighteen essays explore her brilliance.

Through this book I was introduced to Louise's blog, "Writing A Life," which I have started reading. Because it was a library book I didn't mark it up, but how I wanted to! I own many of her books, now I want to get the ones I don't have.

A couple of quotes:
"The art form of memoir exists in the subterranean, the exploration of one's life goes beyond a record of events."
"Memoir doesn't simply tell a life, it reveals a life."