Trapped in the Present Tense

by Colette Brooks

For readers of Rebecca Solnit and Jenny Odell, this poetic and inventive blend of history, memoir, and visual essay reflects on how we can resist the erasure of our collective memory in this American century.

Our sense of our history requires us to recall the details of time, of experiences that help us find our place in the world together and encourage us in the search for our individual identities. When we lose sight of the past, our ability to see ourselves and to understand one another is diminished.
 
In this book, Colette Brooks explores how some of the more forgotten aspects of recent American experiences explain our challenging and often puzzling present. Through intimate and meticulously researched retellings of individual stories of violence, misfortune, chaos, and persistence—from the first mass shooting in America from the tower at the University of Texas, the televised assassinations of John F. Kennedy and Lee Harvey Oswald, life with nuclear bombs and the Doomsday Clock, obsessive diarists and round-the-clock surveillance, to pandemics and COVID-19—Brooks is able to reframe our country’s narratives with new insight to create a prismatic account of how efforts to reclaim the past can be redemptive, freeing us from the tyranny of the present moment.

Genres: Nonfiction, Essays, History

240 pages, Hardcover

First published January 18, 2022

Reviews

[Eric · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book just missed the mark for me. I appreciate the author's writing style but I just wish there was more cohesion here. It's just a bunch of random events. I have no idea what purpose the Secrets chapter had as I felt like it did nothing to propel this book. There are some good pieces here but on the whole it's a bit flat and unfocused.

[Jackie Wells · Rating 2 out of 5]

Easy to read but didn’t teach me anything worthwhile.

[Rennie · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a compelling, if at times confusing, collection of snapshot-style stories of some major American events with an emphasis on ephemeral moments.

Although the events are large-scale, some of the players are smaller (from the author’s family) and it leads to a really interesting style of sort of-memoir, although kind of an unsatisfying one since the stories aren’t whole. Still, I loved seeing where these were going, some were very moving, and I like this sad but never maudlin, determinedly realistic but dreamily musing look at how time runs together and the special significance of mundane moments.

It doesn’t have a big loud message to impart though, it’s a quieter, meandering type of thing but if you like that, along with a bunch of random tie-ins like some fun data trivia, it’s a great snapshot in its own right.

[Marya · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not at all what I thought it was going to be based on the reviews and back of the book. Still, I found the prose almost lyrical, and I liked how the wandering mind gathered its impressions into attempted patterns.

[Kyle Smith · Rating 3 out of 5]

There were aspects of this book I really enjoyed, lines that offered a glimmer of what I anticipated I’d find throughout the whole text. I think I entered the writing with a misunderstanding of what the subtitle “Meditations on American Memory” promised. I was intrigued by the style and structure of it, but I also think I wanted something just slightly different. And that’s on me.

[J Earl · Rating 5 out of 5]

Trapped in the Present Tense by Colette Brooks snuck up on me and I haven't been able to stop thinking about it, and by extension about our current society, since.

Many books that employ the idea that the personal (or even the individual) is public tends to move noticeably back and forth. From an individual's story to society's story, or from a personal story to a societal story. In fact, prior to this book, I wasn't sure how one could truly weave both into a coherent whole. There have certainly been many good and effective books that still, for the most part, have those pivot points where we go from individual to society. Here, they are as entwined as I believe they can be. Partly because many of the individuals are part of the societal story we all know, but also, I think, because Brooks doesn't so much instruct us to shift gears and then tell us what we should take away. She glides from one to the other with as many questions as statements, with as much genuine curiosity as prefigured prescriptions.

I don't often make a point of suggesting that readers read a lot of the parts of a book that are generally overlooked, such as some prefaces and especially acknowledgements, but read every bit of this one. It isn't essential but I think it helps round out the overall picture and makes the impact just a bit more powerful. Again, not essential but highly suggested.

I am curious how people of different ages will read this. I happen to remember most of the events quite vividly from JFK's assassination to the present (no, I don't remember WWII, but I do remember my father's stories, the ones he could tell, very well). For readers who consider the 60s and 70s history (which it is, of course) rather than "when I was young" I wonder what their perspective is. How does it speak to them? I'd love to hear comments!

I highly recommend this for readers who ponder how we got to where we are. This isn't the entire story, but it highlights some key areas and shows us how we might connect other parts of the past to our present.

Reviewed from a copy made available by the publisher via NetGalley.