What I noticed about Leila Philip's A Family Place at first was how appealing the start of the book was, with the narrative voice speaking with love and concern about her father. She was able to establish an immediate connection with me because while she worried about her father and his emphysema from the years he spend smoking cigarettes and the chemicals used in farming, I too had worried about my father, his years of spraying paint and smoking and how it lead to congenital heart disease. When she conveyed her emotions I also connected via my own.
Next, her concern about the apples in the family orchard's returned me to our many family trips to pick cherries in Yakima. The picture below is a flowering cherry, much easier to take care of and very beautiful and more suited to urban Northwest life.
Next, her concern about the apples in the family orchard's returned me to our many family trips to pick cherries in Yakima. The picture below is a flowering cherry, much easier to take care of and very beautiful and more suited to urban Northwest life.
Leila Philip has a picture of a family mansion on the front of her memoir, and throughout her memoir she proceeds to convey how much it costs to maintain such a home and the lands that support her family, while barely keeping ahead of the bills. When I moved to Florida, I had told Bob, oh, you only bought me a two pillar mansion. A mansion isn't a real mansion unless it has ten or more pillars, so I proceeded to add them in metaphorical means (four lovely palm trees) rather than adding to the space I would have to clean.
I guess, in some sense, we all feel defensive about our lives, wanting to prove to others that what they laugh and ridicule us about isn't true and that shows up in memoir in a variety of ways. Leila Philip's turns her mouldering old family history into family connection and into pride in her family's accomplishments, especially her mother's as she moves her farmlands into using more natural means for protecting the crops.
Another feature that shows up in her memoir is the search through family history and a connection to someone else who shares her interest in who the founders of the property and orchards are. I have an interest in history but I find the scenes where she is working in the fields much more compelling, perhaps because I like to escape my chair.
I guess, in some sense, we all feel defensive about our lives, wanting to prove to others that what they laugh and ridicule us about isn't true and that shows up in memoir in a variety of ways. Leila Philip's turns her mouldering old family history into family connection and into pride in her family's accomplishments, especially her mother's as she moves her farmlands into using more natural means for protecting the crops.
Another feature that shows up in her memoir is the search through family history and a connection to someone else who shares her interest in who the founders of the property and orchards are. I have an interest in history but I find the scenes where she is working in the fields much more compelling, perhaps because I like to escape my chair.
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