Memory & Complicity

by Eve Hoffman

In MEMORY & COMPLICITY, we feel Georgia red clay under Eve Hoffman's bare feet on the dairy farm where she grew up; walk with her though an exhibit of one hundred and fifty postcards of lynchings. We see a girl in a yellow dress at the synagogue her great-grandparents founded--the synagogue bombed four hours later by white racists. We see black-faced jockeys in front yards. We listen to lullabies written in the Nazi concentration camps played on her mother's piano--and the realization her mother, a fifth-generation Southern Jew, was pregnant with her as they were being written. We taste sweet-potato pies and feel the wooden pews of churches turning their backs as gay men die. We watch giggling children dive from the top of the refrigerator into their father's arms and as young adults shovel dirt onto his wooden coffin. We accompany a widow rebuilding her life, finding a Mason jar for fireflies for her grandchildren.

134 pages, Paperback

Published May 1, 2018

Reviews

[Evelyn · Rating 5 out of 5]

After reading Eve Hoffman's poetry collection "She", I was eager to attend a reading of her newest collection "Memory & Complicity". Eve's powerful descriptions in the history lessons she provides of her beloved family and transformation made me exclaim out loud many times. I am gifting this book so others can feel the mood of the South from a unique perspective, one that propelled Eve into activism. If you have a chance to hear her read her poetry or bring her to your community, you will not be disappointed.

[Promobon · Rating 5 out of 5]

What really are memories and how does the imprint from our childhood imprint our adult lives?
Poet Eve Hoffman uses God-given lyricism and creativity to draw those valuable connections. Memories of farm life crop up in bright colors, steaming food, milk cows, daffodils, sycamores and swimming in the pond. But intertwined with the idyllic are the imbedded issues of race, anti-semitism, lynchings, life, death, funerals and birth.

Here's the best part. The narrative work is from a true storyteller so don't be afraid of the word "poetry." Hoffman's writings transcend the bounds of poetry and rise to the top like the guernsey cream she writes of.

I invite you to read "He taught them how to Shovel" without a knowing nod of understanding. Read "Without Sanctuary" and then dry your tears. Read "The Sycamores Weep" and rage against the hate machine. And, most importantly, read the prayers, prose and passages that leave your heart warmed.

[Linda Wimberly · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is an exceptional book and one that I think should be added to the curriculum of high school students. It is powerful, bringing everyday life in the South to new heights but also bringing the horrid to the front where it should be seen, remembered and never repeated. A book like this should be front and center to remind us our effort toward peace IS possible but never over.

[Galen Green · Rating 3 out of 5]

A book by a Jewish woman who lived her life in the deep American South. The content was moving (includes a poem on the bombing of the 1958 Synagogue bombing in Atlanta), but the form wasn’t there for me. That being said, worth a read for her takes on Jewishness in America/post-Holocaust, mourning the death of a loved one, and the theme of how complicit we are in creating memories we wish we had.

[Ashley Strozier · Rating 5 out of 5]

A book written by a former neighbor and mother to a woman I grew up with. I lived in Neely Farm - the land she references so often and grew up on herself. Very well written and not solely about the Farm.