A sepia-toned photograph of a mother closely holding a baby adorns the cover of Trethewey’s memoir. The image is slightly blurry, and the specific hue gives it an historical feel–like a picture taken long ago. “Memorial Drive”, the title, didn’t bring the idea of a street into my mind; instead, I saw it as a linguistic way of taking a walk (or in this case a drive) down memory lane. The subtitle immediately set Trethewey’s primary identity and goal into focus: a daughter sharing her perspective. In dedicating this work to “the women who made [her]”, she owes her literal and metaphorical existence to these women; I assume that the two first names are those of her grandmother and/or other female family members that have passed. Ordinarily, I would ask the question “why?” in response to a dedication, but in this case, I think it is clear that she means to recognize and laud these women for their influence upon her.
As for the epigraphs, there is something to be said about the impact of the past on the present, and being able to view the past from a future perspective–both of which are a nod to the title, purpose, and content of the book. The first epigraph is a quote from John Banville’s The Sea; Banville is an Irish writer who won an award for this book that tells the story of a widower returning to his childhood vacation town to simultaneously mourn and escape the memories of his wife. The second epigraph comes from the teachings of Martin Buber, an Austrian-Israeli man whose philosophies focused on the existence of a person in regards to their experiences and dialogues with others. With the context of the epigraph origins, Trethewey’s work seems to intersect both of these topics. In reference to the “Table of Contents”, the book is divided into 2 parts with Roman numerals separating them; there are named, numbered chapters that are punctuated by small passages that are depicted by a set of brackets [ ]; finally, these chapter titles are entirely capitalized.
After reading part I of the memoir, Trethewey repeatedly invokes her family and its members’ personalities by dissecting and describing photographs, just like the one featured on the cover. It was these vignettes that really made me emotionally-invested in the story.
