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down they forgot: a memoir
A memoir of an American childhood and adolescence set in the turbulent 1960s and 70s, down they forgot traces the story of a girl finding her way in a family overshadowed by mental illness. Social and political discontent—assassinations, the Civil Rights movement, the Vietnam War, drugs and dropping out—inform this haunting story about personal identity and the consequences of loneliness, despite the passionate and fleeting friendships of youth. ... Letteri casts a wide net over her youth and wrests from that ocean of memory such gleaming treasures. The whole of youth is captured to perfection in these essays, the intimate and the political, the terrible and the joyous. In the end down they forgot does what the best memoirs must; it reveals Letteri’s lost world while beckoning readers to recall their own. —Lewis Buzbee, The Yellow-Lighted Bookshop
101 pages, Kindle Edition
Published March 11, 2021
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
March 30, 2021
Memoir is one of my favorite genres. I’ve usually been attracted to it for superficial reasons. What’s it like to be a child soldier, hike the Pacific Coast Trail, kill someone in a car accident, or escape a cult? Memoir allows me to explore a specific experience vicariously. Even my motive for picking up “down they forgot” was a bucket list item: what’s it like to read a memoir where one of your friends is a major character in the narrative? I bought the book to find out.
This book challenged me to experience Letteri’s childhood as poetry rather than prose. It wasn’t the first stop on the path to important adult accomplishments. It was childhood on its own terms: messy, confusing, and at times painfully lonely. The title comes from an e e cumming’s line “down they forgot as up they grew” describing a loss of feeling or understanding when we become adults. A better title for this might have been “down she remembered” as she crafts her memory snapshots with a disciplined economy the aspiring writer in me envies and beckons the reader not with the promise of telling the tale of how she got from point A to point B but with an explanation of how she learned to understand life both forward and backward in each small offering.
As a woman who lost her mother and recently gave birth to a daughter, I felt like this book reached out and spoke to me through Abby’s relationship with her mother of whom she says “set aside her own ambitions and her considerable intellect went largely unnoticed.” This is an understatement. There is a vignette that broke my heart early in the story where her mother bravely canvased their neighborhood with her daughter in tow trying to convince nervous or apathetic white housewives to support civil rights and ended up later calling those same houses to apologize for menstrual blood stains she may have left on their couches. Later, Abby punctuates the end of her childhood with an event that made me want to cry and hug her mother for a goodness that transcended the cultural norms of that era and how it valued women and motherhood. Her mother’s idealism is tempered by the poverty the family suffered as a result of one of their father’s failed business ventures. Meanwhile Abby and her brother Richard navigate adolescence during a pivotal decade of American history. I am grateful they both survived to share this part of their lives with me.
This book challenged me to experience Letteri’s childhood as poetry rather than prose. It wasn’t the first stop on the path to important adult accomplishments. It was childhood on its own terms: messy, confusing, and at times painfully lonely. The title comes from an e e cumming’s line “down they forgot as up they grew” describing a loss of feeling or understanding when we become adults. A better title for this might have been “down she remembered” as she crafts her memory snapshots with a disciplined economy the aspiring writer in me envies and beckons the reader not with the promise of telling the tale of how she got from point A to point B but with an explanation of how she learned to understand life both forward and backward in each small offering.
As a woman who lost her mother and recently gave birth to a daughter, I felt like this book reached out and spoke to me through Abby’s relationship with her mother of whom she says “set aside her own ambitions and her considerable intellect went largely unnoticed.” This is an understatement. There is a vignette that broke my heart early in the story where her mother bravely canvased their neighborhood with her daughter in tow trying to convince nervous or apathetic white housewives to support civil rights and ended up later calling those same houses to apologize for menstrual blood stains she may have left on their couches. Later, Abby punctuates the end of her childhood with an event that made me want to cry and hug her mother for a goodness that transcended the cultural norms of that era and how it valued women and motherhood. Her mother’s idealism is tempered by the poverty the family suffered as a result of one of their father’s failed business ventures. Meanwhile Abby and her brother Richard navigate adolescence during a pivotal decade of American history. I am grateful they both survived to share this part of their lives with me.
March 14, 2021
A bittersweet memoir about growing up in a certain family and country.
From the perfect title to the last line, this memoir travels from a child's snapshot memories to an earned understanding of a time of upheaval in this family, as well as a cultural time in this country. Well written, with quiet, indelible descriptions of family members, each lonely and loving in their own way. The words give space for the reader to ponder the arc of their lives, the bittersweet exhaustion of a family with no villains, just survivors, set at a time when America was recognizing some unhappy truths of its own. A perceptive and engaging memoir.
From the perfect title to the last line, this memoir travels from a child's snapshot memories to an earned understanding of a time of upheaval in this family, as well as a cultural time in this country. Well written, with quiet, indelible descriptions of family members, each lonely and loving in their own way. The words give space for the reader to ponder the arc of their lives, the bittersweet exhaustion of a family with no villains, just survivors, set at a time when America was recognizing some unhappy truths of its own. A perceptive and engaging memoir.
May 17, 2021
I loved this memoir. It took me back in time with Abby, but also made me think of my own family dynamic, as there were only 4 of us as well. I had almost forgotten the awkward feelings of growing up, and trying to figure out who you were, but was reminded in this very candid book. It is written with such love, but it is also telling no lies, and the characters are very real, flawed and wonderful all at once. I laughed out loud and cried a few times. It's fantastic!
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews