cover image The House that Made Me: Writers Reflect on the Places and People That Defined Them

The House that Made Me: Writers Reflect on the Places and People That Defined Them

Edited by Grant Jarrett. SparkPress (gosparkpress.com), $17 trade paper (178p) ISBN 978-1-940716-31-2

Nineteen writers, with the help of Google Earth, try, and mostly succeed, to answer the question of what a home is and whether you can go back to your first one. Novelist Jarrett (Ways of Leaving) edits this collection, which includes an essay from him. The essays strike a variety of tones, including curiosity, ambivalence, thoughtfulness, and earnestness. Some writers emphasize the conceit of looking at their old homes from the vantage point of a satellite. Ru Freeman and Jen Michalski, in their pieces, discuss what can be seen and what is missing in the pictures, as well as what is impossible to capture. Jeffery Renard Allen and Pamela Erens return to Chicago’s North Side and South Side, respectively, to capture different aspects of the city. Other writers take readers to California, Canada, New York, and Sri Lanka. Some reexamine their families, while others consider the fragility of memory. All of the essays show, in their own ways, how homes make us and how we attempt to make homes for ourselves, at least in memory. Some readers may well be inspired to take similar journeys into the past. (Apr.)