All the Lands We Inherit

by Darby Price

All the Lands We Inherit is a searing, heartbreaking, and formally inventive debut memoir about family, legacy, and identity. The story centers around the increasingly tense relationship between the author and her mother, a deeply religious woman who has become self-isolated and recalcitrant amidst her many crises: failing health, financial woes, and the accumulated effects of long-untreated traumas. As the lyric vignettes weave back and forth through time, Price investigates the ways that matrilineal legacy have shaped her mother, and how that shaping comes to bear on the author herself. In this deeply personal lyric memoir, the past becomes at once a backdrop and an active force, a thing that underlies everything that happens in the present day. From survival to substance abuse to born-again Christianity, the materials of her matriarchs’ lives inform, if not preordain, the realities of the author’ s own life. Ultimately, All the Lands We Inherit asks: How much do we owe to those who came before us? And how much of ourselves do we own?

88 pages, Paperback

Published June 17, 2025

Reviews

[Corinna McCarthy · Rating 5 out of 5]

"Each time, she finds new ways to make our kindness painful."

Darby's memoir is achingly relatable. Her ability to express the emotional complexity of her relationship with her mother is both sharp and tender.

Thankfully, there has been healing with my mother. But there were long years of illness—and with them, a deep and painful strain. Reading this brought a heavy heart, knowing nods, eye rolls, and deep sighs of recognition.

This is a beautifully written memoir about experiences that are far from beautiful—raw, real, and deeply human.