Stories My Father Never Finished Telling Me: Living with the Armenian legacy of loss and silence

by Douglas Kalajian

Stories My Father Never Finished Telling Me recounts author Douglas Kalajian’s lifelong attempts to overcome his father’s reluctance to speak about his life as a survivor of the Armenian Genocide. In piecing together the scattered bits his father reluctantly shared, Kalajian reflects on how his father’s silence affected his own life and his identity as an American of Armenian descent. Douglas Kalajian is a retired journalist who worked as an editor and writer for the Palm Beach Post and the Miami Herald. He is author of the nonfiction book Snow Blind and co-author of They Had No Voice: My Fight For Alabama’s Forgotten Children.

Genres: Nonfiction

258 pages, Unknown Binding

First published April 14, 2014

Reviews

[George Donigian · Rating 3 out of 5]

In the novel Bluebeard, Kurt Vonnegut writes the serio-comic life of a survivor of the Armenian genocide. Rabo Karebekian’s story well exemplifies survivor syndrome in a somewhat absurdist style. In Stories My Father Never Finished Telling Me, Douglas Kalajian shows the real impact of the Armenian genocide on his own family, and his writing taught me something of my own family’s experience.

Kalajian's book offers a warm understanding and appreciation of a family and a somewhat hidden culture. We see Armenian immigrants trying to make sense of the United States. We glimpse the Armenian community and church, summer camp, dances, and the Armenian kef and kitchen.

Hold the subtitle firmly in mind. We learn from family systems and from victims of abuse of the power of silence and secrets. Imagine how deep the cultural and archetypal wounds are among people who cannot speak of the horrors of genocide or when they do now speak of the genocide, the perpetrators continue to deny it happened. Not only were people lost, but culture was damaged and remains damaged because of the shameful conspiracy of silence. I am thankful to Kalajian and others, such as Peter Balakian and David Kherdian, who have helped give voice to the voiceless.