American Elegy: A Family Memoir

by Jeffrey Simpson

Book Overview

American Elegy is an unforgettable portrait of America, a way of life, and a family that are vanishing even while coming to life on these exquisitely written pages. The author is the final descendent... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0525941223
• ISBN13: 9780525941224
• Release Date: September 1996
• Publisher: Dutton Books
• Length: 227 Pages
• Weight: 0.95 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.0" x 5.9" x 8.9"

Customer Reviews

One of our best book club meetings of 1997.

American Elegy was selected by my book club in 1997, and our discussion of it resulted in one of our best meetings of the year. Any person interested in the facts, legends, and beliefs that create a family's identity will appreciate this book. As someone who has been dubbed her family's "historian", I feel a kinship with Jeffrey Simpson and other writers who seek to reconcile their family's past with the realities of the present.

Captures the essence of what we heard from our grandparents

I have always been fascinated with the stories my parents and grandparents told me. Apparently Jeffrey Simpson was as well, and has taken those stories and gathered them into a wonderful account of his family and how they arrived at the point of his arrival. He weaves humor and pathos together in a remarkable way. At the end of the book I felt that I had sat with him while he was growing up and hearing the stories. It helped that I grew up across the river from Parnassus, and knew very well the scenes that he was describing. This is the book that I've always wanted to write, but didn't know how to go about it