American Imago

As its title promises, this book presents a moving and elevating mixture of memoir and memory. In the midst of travels and times with family and friends, Madelon Sprengnether describes the impact of trauma on her life and memory. Throughout the book she uses her own experiences with the death of her father and the shock of 9/11 to explore her mind’s reactions to overwhelming events and the difficulties that come with turning and facing such emotions. The most compelling aspect of this book, however, is the way in which Sprengnether’s writing mirrors the varying forms of memory.

Sprengnether’s descriptions of travels and celebrations are rich with detail, and one becomes immersed in the events she describes. These depictions convey an easy, light feeling to the narrative, making it natural to relax and feel a part of the scene. The mood, the manner of writing, and the perspective change, however, in the traumatic scenes. All detail becomes lost except that which is relevant to survival. Attention narrows, emotions intensify, and words become inadequate. Anguished cries of “please, please” attempt to voice the inexpressible. Then the trauma ends, and life—how it is seen and described—returns to normalcy. The black and white world of trauma recedes and experience becomes full of color and nuance once again. Trauma is not resolved solely by being spoken, but its processing tends to follow a pattern of intrusion and avoidance, and that is what happens in this book. The trauma narrative comes back, it intrudes, an “unwelcomed guest” (p. 131). Sprengnether revisits her father’s death within her own experiences and in conversations with her brothers. And as that trauma weaves in [End Page 327] and out of the narrative, so do the events of 9/11, a circular process reinforced by the media.

Reflecting on her previous book, Crying at the Movies (2002), Sprengnether explains how her unresolved mourning had “invaded and disrupted” her adult life (p. 2). Working with her memories, she reached a point where the past and present became so intertwined that she could no longer separate them. At that moment, she assumed that she had explored what could be explored and that she had said what she needed to say. Yet, she discovered that trauma resolution takes longer and becomes more complicated.

Seeking answers to how the brain works, especially under conditions of trauma, Sprengnether delved into the neuroscience of memory, beginning with the difference between normal memory and the memory of trauma. Experience produces normal memory, which then becomes a part of the context through which a person perceives the present. But, as explained by the neurobiology of trauma, high cortisol levels produced during traumatic events affect the ability of the brain to function properly, especially its capacity to form coherent memories of those events. A traumatic memory, in other words, cannot be processed contextually: flooding the person’s system, it brings too much stimulation and information for the brain to file away in proper context. Yet, the brain and body do remember trauma. However fragmented, all of the pieces remain, and their collective impact is felt on behavior, thoughts, and emotions. They will still affect perceptions and influence the present. Aspects of a traumatic event thus behave like a cast of characters with only one, or a few, being seen at a time; the rest wait in the wings, ready to step forward onto the platform, or to cue or even sabotage those in the spotlight. In this analogy, consciousness serves as the play’s director, who calls one, some, or all of the cast members onto the stage, talks with them, gives them rewrites of the script, or organizes their presentations.

This directorial consciousness can be developed through mindfulness, and Sprengnether is aware that such mindfulness affects both past and present, altering each in the process. Her experience of losing her father to a drowning accident happened when she was a child of nine, and she perceived it with [End Page 328] the brain and mind of a child. To...