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

by Douglas Kalajian

As an eight-year-old in 1960, Douglas Kalajian watched his father break down in tears as a man on television spoke about the slaughter of Armenians in their native land nearly a half century before. His father rushed out of the room, and his mother stopped him from following. “Don’t ever ask him about what happened,” his mother said. “It’s too sad.” This is how he was handed the Armenian legacy of loss and silence that led to a life-long series of interrupted conversations between father and son. More than 20 years after his father death, the author continued to piece together the jagged bits his father shared in order to make sense not only of his father’s life but of his own identity as an Armenian born in America.

Genres: Nonfiction

259 pages, Kindle Edition

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.