Thank you

Thank you everyone who has reached out to me recently.  I wish I could respond to each comment individually.  Your stories range widely, but I am most grateful to you who have taken the time to detail your own experiences and thoughts about motherhood and womanhood and the variety of choices we make.  I firmly believe it is important for us to find a place where one size does not have to fit all, and to formulate our families however we need to to make sure the kids are loved, supported, healthy and whole, and that the adults are too. 

We are all unique.  It's a big world.  And with the reality that half of all marriages in the U.S. end in divorce, in the face of that personal struggle and sadness, we need to be allowed to find the best way forward for all concerned.

When Hiroshima in the Morning first came out, people everywhere gave me their stories, at readings, in taxi cabs.  You are still sharing.  Thank you.

What is a mother?

From my article today on Salon:

"The question I am always asked is, "How could you leave your children?" How could you be the mother who walks away? As if my children were embedded inside me, even years after birth, and had to be surgically removed? As if I abandoned them on a desert island, amid flaming airplane debris and got into the lifeboat alone?"

Read the whole essay here.

Truth Telling

From an interview on Cara Hoffman's  blog:

"When I went to Japan, I was looking for the textural details of the atomic bomb experience for a novel.  Three months into my visit, September 11th happened, and the testimonies changed. The atomic bomb survivors were shaken by the attacks, just as the rest of the world was, and as a result, they began to remember differently – which is to say, they recovered buried details of loss, of pain, and of love. At that moment, the tables turned. I was no longer seeking them out for their help; they wanted to talk to me so that I could be a witness to their experiences and a repository of their memories, their lost family members, their suffering. It was an incredible honor, and I do feel like I wrote the book, in part, for them: as a testament to those moments of connection and their trust in me. That is the closest I come to political."

For the whole interview, click here.  And look out for Cara's debut, So Much Pretty, coming from S&S on March 15th.
For links to all articles and essays, check the sidebar.

National Book Critics Circle Award Events

A panel discussion and a reading before the awards ceremony.  Here are the details.  All open to the public.

NBCC Finalists in Conversation at The Graduate Center

March 08, 2011 7:00 pm 
Elebash Recital Hall, The Graduate Center, CUNY Fifth Avenue 

between 34th and 35th New York, NY 

NBCC biography and autobiography finalists in conversation with biography chair Eric Banks and autobiography co chair Rigoberto Gonzalez. With biography finalists Sarah Bakewell and Yunte Huang, autobiography finalists Patti Smith, Rahna Reiko Rizzuto, and others. Hosted by Brenda Wineapple.

National Book Critics Circle Awards: Finalists Reading, 6:00 PM

March 09, 2011 6:00 pm 
The New School 66 West 12th St New York, NY 

From Critical Mass, the blog of the National Book Critics Circle Board of Directors

The NBCC is posting a review of each nominated book for this year's awards.  It is a great way to get a sense of them all, and decide which ones you are going to buy and read.  Today's entry:

"The many avenues of Hiroshima in the Morning--explorations of history, of culture, of family, of self--ebb and flow to deliver a stunning portrait of survival. Rizzuto’s writing is lyrical and moving, transcendent and beautiful, yet it constructs a robust narrative that does not succumb to the gravity of the world events that inform it.

Above all, Rizzuto’s gorgeous and hard-won memoir is an exploration of story. How we shape it and how it shapes us, how it imprisons us though eventually, mercifully, it liberates us: “How we tell our stories makes all the difference. They are where we store our tears, where the eventual healing lies... What September 11 gave to the hibakushas, and what they gave in turn to me, is a way to re-enter memory.”

Read the entire article here.

More praise for Hiroshima in the Morning can be found here.

National Book Critics Circle Award Finalist

Awe and gratitude.  And a few tears.  That is my response to the news that Hiroshima in the Morning was nominated as a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award.

The selection committee chose a shortlist of books that give me great hope, not just for books and writers, but for who we are and what we care about as human beings.  Each book grapples with our most important subjects - death, war, friendship; each expands our universal experience by sharing it through a single, compassionate heart.  They are thoughtful, provocative and necessary.  Read them.

Names

When you lose someone, her name is lost too - lost as in floating, with no one to land on, curl up against, declare.  Her name is a slip, which you can't reel back in even if you want to. 

A ghost in the room.  An orphan.

Interview in the Examiner

From an interview with Justin Tedaldi:

"The most unbearable stories were often about children. Children who died; children who tried to save their brothers or parents; children who cremated their parents, at age six, because that was what their parents would have wanted. In the months after 9/11, though, something happened which was very moving and powerful. A number of people came to me to tell their stories. Before then, I had been finding my own interviewees with the help of my translators, but after September 11th, I found out that many people actually knew I was there, listening, and they sought me out because they needed a witness. They needed a safe place to relive, and purge, their memories.  And then, it wasn’t just the sad moments. It was also the happy memories of life before, and their family members before. They needed to share those, too, and they gave them to me so their loved ones would not fade away."

Read the whole conversation here.

For more articles and essays, check out the sidebar.

Goodbye

My mother, Shirley Anne Rizzuto

April 5, 1942 – November 16, 2010

Memorial service on Sunday, November 28, 2010

Service at 1:30 pm, visitation at 12:30 pm.

Davies Memorial Chapel

Hawaii Preparatory Academy, Waimea, HI

Aloha attire

 

Stories

A story about stories on My Friend Amy's blog:

"For the first time in a while, I was listening to a survivor’s story. As the Hiroshima survivors did, this man picked his details and told the story that made sense to him. There were things he held onto, like the friendly fire. Details he must tell every time he talks about this, until they are rehearsed. He wanted to know – did my book contain anything like his story? Did I know what he knew, or enough of it, so that he could rest easy? I had a similar experience in Japan after September 11th: the survivors sought me out, needing a place to leave their stories in safety. Needing a witness."

Read the whole story here: Looking at Ground Zero...