Making the Small into Something Large

One of my favorite short stories is “Killings” by Andre Dubus. The major event of the story, the revenge killing of a man who has murdered the main character’s son, is large, but within the narrative that moves to this climax, there are smaller, quieter moments that are equally significant. One such moment occurs in…

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Giving a Memoir Resonance

Facts alone do not a memoir make. First this happened, then this happened, then this happened. A sequence of memories is easy enough for anyone to recall from a particular period of time in his or her life. It may even be easy to see the causal links between the events on a timeline. Because…

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