If you are researching your roots read these books. As part of my research for my book, I’ve been reading a lot of memoirs. Some have been better than others. One, very well known memoirist is so whiny, and her work is so self-absorbed that I can barely get through her books.

What I am looking for is a good story but also a discovery. I gravitate to books where the author is looking to their past, their history and examining how it affects their present.

IF YOU ARE RESEARCHING YOUR ROOTS READ THESE BOOKS

Shame On Me by Tessa McWatt. I have about a dozen or so sticky notes marking spots in this book. What I love is how Tessa takes different parts of herself, detaches each piece, shakes it up, and then tries to understand them. Each piece is then examined and reassembled to make herself whole.

The clever twist is that this entire book is approached like a science project, the kind we all had to do in high school. It starts with a hypothesis, moves on to the experiment, the analysis and finally the findings.

It’s also part biology project since the analysis is divided up into body parts like, eyes, nose, lips, blood. This makes perfect sense because our features are a reflection of our histories.

Now hold on to that thought. Let’s take a look at What The Oceans Remember by Sonja Boon.

Although this book is much more academic in its writing style, it follows a similar pattern. Boon unwinds her cultural histories, gets to know them better, and meticulously folds them back together.

Even though my story is very different, I could absolutely relate to a lot of her thoughts.

When I moved to Poland, a lot of people commented that I was ‘coming back’. This felt very strange since, other than one short visit, I wasn’t born there and I had never lived there and I didn’t feel a strong connection to the culture.

“You’re going back,” a friend said to me before my departure for Suriname. Back? I thought to myself. Back where? I wondered what he meant by this. It’s hard to claim an identity that is mine only by inheritance. An identity constructed by a land that I barely knew. I wasn’t born in Suriname. I’d never lived there. For most of my life, the country had remained on the periphery of my thoughts. Return. Back. These are difficult words to make sense of.
Sonja Boon 2019 p.99

This is it. Boon captures this feeling to perfection. She takes you, the reader, along on her travels to different countries and cities to discover more about her past. As you close the book, you will find that you know a little bit more about the world and about history.

Both these women have very different histories, from each other and from mine. I feel, however, that the three of us could sit down for a nice long dinner and an even longer chat.

Looking into your past is exhilarating but also very emotional. Especially when you are “made up of” different cultures, piecing them all together can be overwhelming. Both women take all of their parts and reconcile them in a way I hope to do with my story.