How does photography work as an integral aspect of how Natasha tells her mother’s story?

In what ways does Natasha demonstrate that those around her were socially conditioned to downplay or overlook the severity of her mother’s abuse? What do those details reveal about the South of her time and about the nation? What do those details also reveal about the forms of misogyny that persist and prevent social justice for battered women?

What do you think of the relative absence of Rick Trethewey in the period of Gwen’s remarriage? How might Joel’s abuse of Gwen and Natasha, as well as Gwen’s embrace of the Afrocentricity of the 1970s have prefigured his marginal presence during this decade?

What do you make of the author’s use of the second-person in the narrative? When does she use this device, and why is it significant in these instances?

Within her mother’s story and hers is also the story of Natasha’s maternal lineage. What lessons might Natasha be trying to glean from her grandmother and her great-aunt, Sugar? How would those lessons be relevant to Trethewey’s own life and that of her mother?

Memorials play a significant role in the memoir, including its title. Explain how this term appears, and how it shapes the personal and the social throughout the narrative.

Joel persistently mentions his history as a Vietnam War soldier as part of his context. Do you believe that the war was integral in forming his character? If so, in what ways?

Natasha focuses on certain aspects of Joel’s physicality to express her initial suspicions about him. Explain the possible role of physiognomy—a literary device in which an author uses physical characteristics to determine character—in the memoir.

Gwen’s life with men is largely determined by historical currents. With Rick, she endured the tumult of the 1960s, and, with Joel, she withstood the post-Vietnam era. How did the responsibilities of domesticity and her gender determine her experiences of the era? What do you make of her unfulfilled desires to participate in activism?