Horatiu Burcea
A brave, moving and intellectually rich memoir What begins as an enquiry into a family mystery gradually becomes a meditation on memory, grief and the difficulty of knowing those closest to us. Through autobiographical fragments and carefully chosen photographs, Tom Stanley traces an elusive family history while examining his relationship with his father and the habits of thought and feeling passed from one generation to the next. The book’s searching, discontinuous form is well suited to its subject. The past survives here in partial archives, uncertain recollections and objects whose significance remains just beyond reach. Its candour can be disquieting, but it is balanced by finesse, self-awareness and emotional restraint. Rather than forcing reconciliation or resolution, Stanley allows love, resentment, guilt and loss to remain inseparably entangled. The result is an original and deeply affecting book, made more compelling by the very uncertainties and incompleteness it refuses to conceal.
