When an author publishes a work, the author is often asked: What authors influenced your work?
For my book, The Long Tail of Trauma, my list can be divided into those whose writing I most admire – Faulkner, Ondaatje, Erdrich– to those whose work speak to the content of my book that explores how the legacy of trauma can be carried down a maternal line.
In other words, authors whose work falls under the genre, ‘trauma lit’.
Perhaps most noteworthy in that genre at the moment is psychiatrist Bessel van der Kolk’s book, The Body Keeps The Score. Since it was published in 2014, this book has spent nearly three years on the New York Times Bestseller List; if you want to listen to the thinking behind this book, I highly recommend listening to Ezra Klein’s interview with Dr. Bessel van der Kolk.
But in this genre are many other best-selling books – though sadly not mine – that have become all the more popular during Covid-19.
First among them is What Happened to You?, a compilation of letters and dialogue between Oprah Winfrey and the psychiatrist Bruce D. Perry.
The Deepest Well , by the surgeon general of California, Nadine Burke Harris, and It Didn’t Start With You by author Mark Wolynn also continue to sell and are both books I used in researching my work.
Not that my book is similar to these works. My book is a memoir constructed as a dual narrative. The first narrative is a present-day dialogue between myself and my mother who suffered from PTSD because of her childhood and what her own mother endured.
The second is a historical fiction of sorts that begins with the birth of my grandmother in 1904 to a German house servant of a British employer and extends through both world wars into present day. Through that imagined and reconstructed past, these mothers and daughters show the psychological harm that can result from war.
As far as my mother is concerned, she participated in Operation Pied Piper when the British Government sent young British children on trains out of London to live in foster homes, the effects of which have been profound on her. My grandmother also was deeply impacted by war, separated from and then reunited with her mother before WWI and later interned in Holland during WW2.
By no means, am I the first to explore Operation Pied Piper through the lens of children. Paddington Bear and the works of C.S. Lewis both are said to have set their stories during that ill-fated British government initiative. My work, however, lends a female voice to the legacy that separation during war leaves.
“Compassionate and compelling writing” Mitch Wertlieb tweeted about my memoir, after interviewing me on this podcast with VPR.
But no matter the nature of your interest, do a little research and you can be sure to find a book that speaks to what you seek in trauma lit. Barnes and Noble reportedly sells over 1300 books under the “Anxiety, Stress & Trauma-Related Disorders” tab alone. Below are two more works that explore trauma and are carried on our site.
Additional AuthorPod Books that Explore Trauma
Comes with Furniture and People by Charlotte Matthews
The story of a daughter desperate to reach a mother trapped in depression. What’s more, the daughter intuits the mother has an incurable disease, one the mother hides even from herself, as she spends her days reading Greek dramas and studying the etymologies of words.
Landslide by Susan Conley
A beautiful portrait of a family in a fishing village in Maine that provides a fresh look at marriage, motherhood, and the wondrous inner lives of teenagers. “A truly beautiful and unforgettable love story of a family on the brink” (Lily King, author of Writers & Lovers).
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