Screening Room: Family Pictures

by Alan Lightman

A WASHINGTON POST NOTABLE BOOK OF THE YEAR • Alan Lightman’s grandfather M.A. was the family’s undisputed patriarch. It was his movie theater empire that catapulted the Lightmans, a Hungarian Jewish immigrant family, to prominence in the South; his triumphs that would both galvanize and paralyze his descendants. In this evocative personal history, the author chronicles his return to Memphis and the stifling home he had been so eager to flee forty years earlier. As aging uncles and aunts retell old stories, Alan finds himself reconsidering long-held beliefs about his larger-than-life grandfather and his quiet, inscrutable father.The result is an unforgettable family saga set against the pulsing backdrop of Memphis—its country clubs and juke joints, its rhythm and blues, its segregated movie theaters, its barbecue and pecan pie—including encounters with Elvis, Martin Luther King Jr., and E. H. “Boss” Crump. Both intensely personal and quintessentially American, Screening Room finely explores the tricks of light that can make—and unmake—a man and his myth.(With black-and-white illustrations throughout.)

Genres: Nonfiction, Memoir, Biography Memoir, History, Biography

274 pages, Kindle Edition

First published February 10, 2015

About the author

Alan Lightman is an American writer, physicist, and social entrepreneur. Born in 1948, he was educated at Princeton and at the California Institute of Technology, where he received a PhD in theoretical physics. He has received five honorary doctoral degrees. Lightman has served on the faculties of Harvard and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and was the first person at MIT to receive dual faculty appointments in science and in the humanities. He is currently professor of the practice of the humanities at MIT. His scientific research in astrophysics has concerned
black holes, relativity theory, radiative processes, and the dynamics of systems of stars. His essays and articles have appeared in the Atlantic, Granta, Harper’s, the New Yorker, the New York Review of Books, Salon, and many other publications. His essays are often chosen by the New York Times as among the best essays of the year. He is the author of 6 novels, several collections of essays, a memoir, and a book-length narrative poem, as well as several books on science. His novel Einstein’s Dreams was an international bestseller and has been the basis for dozens of independent theatrical and musical adaptations around the world. His novel The Diagnosis was a finalist for the National Book Award. His most recent books are The Accidental Universe, which was chosen by Brain Pickings as one of the 10 best books of 2014, his memoir Screening Room, which was chosen by the Washington Post as one of the best books of the year for 2016,
and Searching for Stars on an Island in Maine (2018), an extended meditation on science and religion – which was the basis for an essay
on PBS Newshour. Lightman is an elected fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He is also the founder of the Harpswell Foundation, a nonprofit organization whose mission is “to advance a new generation of women leaders in Southeast Asia.” He has received the gold medal for humanitarian service from the government of Cambodia.

Reviews

[Kerry · Rating 3 out of 5]

I know... I'm the curmudgeon that gives this lovely memoir three stars. Gripe Gripe Gripe. Now, Lightman writes well in this memoir, but you know I'm gonna give it to you honestly....it solidly cured my lifetime plague of insomnia over and over again. I might just keep it around so I can stop blowing half my money on ZzzQuil. (Yes, I have Ambien, but I do some REALLLLL cheeky stuff on it...like take away my phone and hide yo' kids, hide yo' wives! So, I save it for special occasions, like a HS reunion so everyone knows I not only am still weird, but got WEIRDER.)

I mean, I see the validity in the story... and it seems like it should be filled with pizzazz... I feel like less of a person and reviewer anytime I use the word pizzazz in conversation. It just feels douchey. I mean you're just adding two little letters to the word pizza, right? Except pizza is already PERFECT as we know it, and you don't screw with perfection.

I think it touches on a subject we all experience though as the author showcases that how after so many years and some things revealed about his family... which, he has a legit crazy aunt or two, but those biddies surely couldn't fill the riot girdle that my Aunt Anne rocks...but then it's dubious anyone in the world can with that biddy.

As we grow up and learn about our family and parents and such, we begin to understand some of the choices they made more, mostly bc history repeats and we likely have had to make some of those decisions ourselves. I'm glad I learned from mom's perm phase to stray away from that,though I'll likely grow a third eye from the amount of Aqua Net that she used. That said, I am guilty of my own bowlcut phase...but at least it was before puberty....god knows how many are out there still hiding under snap backs.

Anywho, Lightman is a good writer, but it drags a smidge... ugh, smidge. Another awful word. My vocabulary has failed me today... so with that I bid you all fond farewell before I help solve your insomnia too....

[Margaret · Rating 5 out of 5]

Screening Room is broken down into a series of essays that are essentially vignettes of Wightman's family past. I thought it was a creative way of retelling a family story, though the book designer responsible for the interior who chose Papyrus for section headings was misguided. The outside of the book is naturally very lovely, but nothing can make up for Papyrus in a book about a Jewish family living in the South.

[Allison · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was an engaging book. Even though I didn't know who Alan Lightman was nor have I ever been to Memphis, I was intrigued by his story about his father and Grandfather and his childhood in Memphis. He was born in 1948 so around my mother's age.

Grandfather M.A. Lightman built a movie theater dynasty starting in 1915 that still exists.

Father Richard served in WWII and worked for the family business. He was a distant father letting the mother and maid manage the family.

Although not bad men, they seemed to accept the philosophy that being white men, they were allowed to be self absorbed and concern themselves only with their wants and needs. Blacks and women were beneath them. Only useful to fulfill a role.

Although they both did good deeds with regards to race relations and support for causes it didn't feel like they were standing up in public demanding change.

But maybe they did. It's a short book.

The era in the US prior to the Civil Rights fights might be the era that the GOP is referring to when they say "Make America Great Again". The white man had all the privileges and women and blacks were their subordinates.

[SundayAtDusk · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is one of those books that stared off so confusing that I quickly regretted choosing it to read. Someone in the author's family has died, the family has gathered, and there's lots of conversation about people and events the reader knows nothing about. Then, we're off to the past with short stories of individual family members, which weren't that captivating at first. Soon, though, bewilderment and disinterest turned into wonderment and attention, and I realized I was reading a special type of memoir. Now, that I knew the family a bit, I even went back to the beginning of the story for a moment to see who was dead. It was Uncle Ed.

While this book centered on M.A. Lightman, Uncle Ed's father and the author's movie theater bigwig grandfather, it was also about other generations in this Memphis family. Author Alan Lightman grew up in the 1950s and 1960s, and those decades were marvelously described--everything from drive-in theaters to the civil rights movement. Besides the people climate, Mr. Lightman liked to talk about the weather climate, too--the never-ending sweltering summers of the south. He further captured so well the feelings of those still held hostage by their childhood, even though they've broken away. One of his best observations being: " I will always live here, but I cannot live here."

There's a bit of a crash, however, at the end of Screening Room: Family Pictures in the acknowledgments, where the author confessed that some of the memoir's characters were "loosely based" on family members; some were "amalgamations of real people"; and two, Lennie and Nate, were fictitious! What are make-believe people doing in a nonfiction book? My guess is possibly "Lennie" led too much of a "shocking by southern standards" life to identify her by her real name. And "Nate" would be ostracized in the real world for his "phasma" belief. Or maybe "Nate" only existed in this book, in order to bring up the author's "phasma" theory; an idea which may be a bit too metaphysical for some readers, although I personally found it to be highly interesting.

Whatever the author's reasons for the decision to "fictionalize" his memoir a bit, I don't quite believe he's justified in doing so, because the line between reality and fantasy these days is getting too thin. Yet, I was not highly disturbed by his acknowledgment confession. One, because he did confess, and didn't try to hide those facts. Two, possibly because of something he said in an interview with a Memphis paper about this book. He said: "But I think writers only get in trouble when they're not honest with the reader." That made me remember two memoirs I read that I kept thinking about and discussing with others for the longest time, even though I intensely disliked them both. I finally figured out the reason I did so was because I thought both the authors were lying in their books--big, big time lying! And that is exactly what I feel Alan Lightman is not doing in his memoir. He is not lying. He is telling the truth as well as he knows it, and he appears to be an insightful observer of life, including his own life.

(Note: I received a free ARC of this book from Amazon Vine.)

[Robert Miller · Rating 4 out of 5]

In this memoir, Lightman writes about his upper class and privileged upbringing in Memphis, a standard created virtually single-hand'edly by his grandfather, M.A. Lightman, the founder of a vast enterprise of movie theaters in the area. He cautiously writes about the contrasting social status between the elite and black people, including the servants retained by his grandfather and his own family in a memorable and empathetic fashion. I was drawn to the personal relationship that Lightman formed with Blanche, a black and religious women who tended to all their household needs including making meals, ironing and cleaning. He remained close to Blanche until her death- 3 days apart from his mother's death. He writes about the traditional cultural values of the South, the architecture, food, music, and discrimination and the slow transition towards equality- all in a intriguing and often familial and anecdotal style; he uses fictional portrayal very sparingly and accounts for this in the "Acknowledgments" notations at the end of the book. The book is sad in the sense that, starting with his grandfather, and then his father, the men seemed to make their women the victims of unrequited love. Even though only a small sector of readers could possibly relate to the style of life the author reminiscences about, I can recommend this book.

[Mike · Rating 4 out of 5]

The funeral of the author's uncle is the jumping off point for this wonderful memoir about growing up in Memphis in the 50s and 60s. Alan Lightman is the grandson of MA Lightman, wealthy owner of a chain of movie theaters that started in Memphis and spread throughout the south. Lots of good stuff here about the relationship between parents and their children and how that changes at different stages of our lives. The Lightman family was Jewish in the Jim Crow south so there's reflections on race and religion. And being Memphis, Elvis even makes an appearance or two.

I'd have given it five stars but I was disappointed to read in the acknowledgements that a couple of the characters (including one of the most entertaining) were fictional. I know it must be difficult to discuss family history (some of it not always pleasant) and be totally historically accurate but I'm not sure why the author felt the need to invent characters when the actual family story is already fascinating. But that caveat aside, it is a very good book and I recommend it.

[Maggi · Rating 4 out of 5]

Lightman comes to terms with both the beautiful and the profane in the city of his youth, Memphis. Very interesting character studies of his relatives and even of the city itself as a character. I'm a huge fan of his lyrical style, though nothing can ever compare with Einstein's Dreams , a true work of literary art, but there were a couple passages toward the end (where Lightman finally really opens up about his relationship with his father) and some beautiful insights about life, death and the nature of time. One I especially liked:

Underneath this concrete there once was a pond. What is real? If the past is all that is real, because it is all that is reputed to have actually happened, then it cannot be real because it shifts and contorts in our mind. If the present is all that is real, then it too is not real, for it slips to the past as quickly as a breath. I look up to see three children kicking a red ball across the street. In a second they will be old.

[Bob Pearson · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a nostalgia book and appealing to me because I know Memphis and know people who recall the days of the 50's when the Lightman family were so prominent. It's an excellent read of the times seen through Lightman's mature vision, a life experience that many white Southerners have passed through as they look back at times that in today's world are hard to comprehend. There are also plenty of movie stars, some nice vignettes of Elvis Presley just arriving in Memphis to record songs, and other perspectives on a time before the transformation of Southern life, politics and society in the 60's.

[Corey · Rating 5 out of 5]

A beautifully written, heartfelt memoir about families, Memphis and the movies.

[christinemm · Rating 3 out of 5]

not a real memoir. partially made up, fiction.

[Linda · Rating 4 out of 5]

Loved this book. Absolutely hate that some characters and incidents are slightly fictionalized for effect.

[Aftan · Rating 3 out of 5]

It took me a bit to get used to the essay style format; at first it felt choppy and I struggled with the flow of the story. Once I got use to this the story was interesting and kept me engaged enough to finish the book in a day. It is always interesting to learn the life stories of others and the author did not dissapoint. At times I could hear the accent of those telling the story and felt like I was sitting with my family reliving family history.

I do wish more color was added to the stories at times. I was also dissapointed with the lack of pictures that I would hope a book like this would share.

The thing that bugged me the most though was at the very end. "The characters...are based on real people of the same names. Stories relating to these characters are for the most part true but have been embroidered by the vagaries of memory and the impulse for drama. Other Lightman characters are loosely based on members...with names changed in some cases; some are amalgamations of real people. Lennie and Nate are fictatious."

Why in a memoir would fictatation characters be added? I can see changing names and even tweaking stories a bit. I can however not wrap my head around fictatious characters.

[Suzy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Alan Lightman is humble, intelligent, philosophical, spiritual, artistic, scientific--what's not to like? I loved this memoir of growing up white, Jewish and privileged in Memphis in the 50's and 60's (Lightman's grandfather owned a bunch of movie theaters across the south). It is an elegy to our own past lives--the last embers gone forever with the passing of our elders--and a reckoning with being raised in the Jim Crow south, with underpaid servants ("the help") both "loved" and mistreated by the family, and an awakening that came with moving north for an education at the cusp of the Civil Rights movement. The book also deals with the multi-generational reach of a powerful patriarch and the lives subsumed under him. Lightman has something to teach us, softly, sorrowfully; I will read more of him.

[Britt · Rating 3 out of 5]

I think I should have liked this more as I usually enjoy stories related to the movie industry, but this was a bit boring as an audiobook. Maybe it was the tone of the guy reading it? Lightman definitely has an interesting family--I particularly loved the glamour and eccentricity of all the women in his family. However, it was hard for me to keep track of the people and his stories. I also had some problems remembering that his well-to-do Jewish movie industry family lived in the south and not LA. I kept thinking they were talking about Hollywood with many of the same restaurant and hotel names until he starts to talk about southern food, Elvis Presley, and southern race relations. I think the author writes well and maybe it would be better to get in print format.

[Robin · Rating 3 out of 5]

Tempted to give this four stars. A walk down memory lane with Lightman--through his family "album" in Memphis. Sweet family memoir with an historical backdrop. I like this guy--will read some of his other work.

[Birgitte · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great storytelling. I enjoy the main character's voice. This book is mostly a family memoir, but I guess also a novel because some characters and events are the inventions of the author. I'll keep this one on my bookshelf to read again.

[Devon · Rating 1 out of 5]

White author drops the N-word needlessly in the first few sentences and it didn't seem to be part of a quote or anything, rather thrown in there to "set the scene" as being a book about the past. What the fuck, dude? Gross.

[Joan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Lightman, who has a dual appointment to MIT faculty in both physics and the humanities, is one of my favorites. This book chronicles his youth growing up in a Jewish family in Memphis when Jews were still ostracized. I thoroughly enjoyed it.

[Linh · Rating 3 out of 5]

I really enjoyed the way this blended essay with memoir and fiction, a really way to tell your family's story without boring anyone.

[Jason · Rating 3 out of 5]

It was okay - I think the audiobook added a lot to this story. Felt very sanitized and sometimes lacked candor. One of his better fiction books though (and it is fiction).

[Angela · Rating 3 out of 5]

Personally compelling because I grew up in Memphis & recognized the streets, locations, & race relations. A quick read.

[Jill Meyer · Rating 3 out of 5]

I've read many memoirs and have felt that they are books that usually don't NEED to be written - the world can surely get along without a memoir - but that they are usually enjoyable reading. A good memoir writer sheds light on the people and events in his or her life and makes connections between those people and those events, thus making sense of their life. But not all memoirs should be published. Many are not interesting to readers outside the circle of friends and family and many memoirs are too blunt and hurtful to others included in the story. I just finished Alan Lightman's memoir, "Screening Room: Family Pictures", and while I certainly enjoyed reading it, I was a bit puzzled about what Lightman chose to include in the book.

Alan Lightman comes from a Southern Jewish family and grew up in Memphis, Tennessee. Born in 1949, Lightman was raised in a wealthy home, the grandson and son of men who had an empire of movie theaters in towns and cities across the South. He lived through the 1950s and 1960s - a charged time in the Civil Rights movement - before escaping to college in the north. He returned to Memphis from time to time, to see his parents, who were themselves locked in a long, frustrating marriage of two people who were not of the same mind and temperament. Their marriage ended with the death of Alan's mother at the age of 71, while his father lived on into his 90's. The memoir flicks back and forth in time between Alan's childhood, the establishment of the family in Memphis by his grandfather, M A Lightman, and Alan's own adulthood.

Much of Lightman's memoir is also about other family members who are vividly described. However, in the afterword, Lightman writes that some of the characters, including his "aunt Lennie" whose "wild life" with five husbands is quite a large part of the story, are fictional. That's what I don't get about this book; is it a memoir or is it fiction or is it both? It's a bit disconcerting to read about people - who the reader assumes are real (though with possible name changes to protect the guilty) - and then find out they are a mix of real and not-so-real.

Lightman does a very good job at describing life in the Memphis of the time. Not only was the city a center in the Civil Rights movement, but also in the world of music and entertainment. I enjoyed this memoir but I'm a bit puzzled at the "truthiness" of it. But does that even matter? I think for anyone who wants a good look at Memphis and of a family who had a hand in making it what it is, it's well worth reading.

EDITING NOTE: I had originally rated this book as a four star, but the further away I get from the book, the more I realise that his inclusion of two fictional characters - and they are a large part of the story - into the mix with real characters was odd. Really odd. If they had been background characters, I'd be okay with them being included. BUT, when they are as intrinsic to the book as they are, the whole idea of a "memoir" becomes stretched into something it isn't. The reader should be able to depend on the author to be a reliable narrator. Otherwise, the book should be rated as fiction and written as such.

[Steve Allison · Rating 5 out of 5]

The author describes his memories of his family and the city of Memphis where he grew up in the 50's and 60's. The occasion of an uncle's funeral provided Alan an extended visit a couple of years ago and the opportunity to talk with friends and family members and to visit important places. He is the grandson of the founder of the MALCO theater chain and the great grandson of a Jewish immigrant who settled in the South in the late 19th century. Alan mixes family history with Memphis history as he writes. The movie business and the wealth it created are crucial to the lives of his family and how the were formed and lived. The book was very enjoyable to me and meaningful. Though I could count on my hands the number of times I visited Memphis before moving there at age 21 for two years, I have always felt an intimacy with it. Part of that is due to the fact that while I was growing up, our homes in Arkansas were within the broadcast area of the Memphis TV stations and we heard the Memphis area news very frequently. So I was curious to read this book and it did not disappoint me. The many vignettes of family stories and the places where they took place could easily be envisioned. I have some things in common with Alan, both of us having Physics degrees. The launch of the Sputnik satellite by the Russians in the fifties was a catalyzing event in our lives, impelling us toward careers in science. Alan has numerous accomplishments in theoretical physics and writing, being the first person ever at MIT to hold both science and humanities post simultaneously. He could have trumpeted some of this in book but he doesn't. He is self deprecating if anything. The book has whetted my appetite to read some of his other works. Einstein's Dreams will be one of those.

[Jeff · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a memoir from Lightman about his family and childhood in the Memphis, TN area. Lightman's family ran a series of well known movie theaters. Using this as a backdrop, Lightman recounts stories told by his family following the death of an uncle and Lightman's return for the services. As a memoir, he includes some compilation characters in his narrative, but this does not detract from the overall story. Lightman reflects on the relationships within his family as well as the impact of social change in the Memphis area. There are a few passages that bring back the magic of "Einstein's Dreams" and his other work, but in many places this reads as a mildly interesting set of observations and memories. A good read for those who like his writing, but I'm not sure how appealing this would be to someone just looking to pick up a book.

[Art]

A Memphis memoir by one of my favorite writers of science and science fiction.

Einstein's Dreams
The Accidental Universe: The World You Thought You Knew
Mr g: A Novel About the Creation

[Andrea Stenn · Rating 3 out of 5]

Having been taken by Lightman's beautiful writing in his other books, I looked forward to this memoir.
It was a real disappointment. It takes place in Memphis, going back and forth between the present and the early years when his great-grandfather emigrated. His grandfather was an early movie theater pioneer.
While you might garner some history and atmosphere of the early period, I felt the book was Lightman's attempt to come to terms with his parents.

[Kelly · Rating 5 out of 5]

An excellent read and moving work - many passages give you pause to think about the narrative of your own life. Underscoring all of this is a wonderful illustration of the Memphis of the middle twentieth century as well as the challenges faced as the nation's "Old South" struggled to become the "New South."

[Joanna · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really like Alan Lightman's stuff, but this one is quite different. His other books are harder-edged and more science-y, but this is a languid, gentle. In his notes, he acknowledges his debt to Running in the Family, and there are a lot of parallels.
It takes a while to develop a coherent shape, but the cumulative effect is quite powerful.

[Amanda · Rating 1 out of 5]

Normally I love history, but this was so dry and so boring that I just could not get through it. I like the concept, but it's written in such a way that I nearly fell asleep while reading it. I wouldn't recommend it unless you're a die-hard entertainment history buff.

[Kay · Rating 3 out of 5]

A lovely memoir that circles around Memphis and the south, as it circles around the interconnection of family and the passage of time.