Mary Bremier’s use of language is ravishingly beautiful in her memoirs. With the sentence “I was born in the same dark mahogany bed in which I was conceived.” You know you are in the hands of a master wordsmith. She uses dialogue to show rather than tell her story. Mary’s father describes an African American man standing by her family’s house, “Face as black as a skillet.”

When Mary explains that their house being all mixed up, she follows up with a wonderful metaphor— “The furniture looked as it was ready to march right out of the house.”

Towards the end of the book, when Mary visits her home with her siblings, she talks about how the last chapters of her life would be amended while the earlier memories censored.

This is a stunning memoir to be provocatively relished.