In How to Change History Robin Hemley grapples with the individual’s navigation of history and the conflict between personal and public histories. In an attempt to restore, resurrect, and reclaim what might otherwise be lost, Hemley meditates and speculates on photography, scrapbooks, historical markers, travelogues, TV shows, real estate come-ons, washed up rock stars, incontinent dachshunds, stalkers, skeletons in the closet, and literature. He also examines his parents’ lives as writers, documenting their under-seen influence on the art movements of the day.
In one essay, he writes about his mother’s first cousin, Roy, a survivor of Pearl Harbor whose troubled daughter murdered him. The essay “Jim’s Corner” examines the notion of memorial plaques and how they often highlight erasure rather than forestall it. Hemley writes about a stranger whose World War II experiences were chronicled in a scrapbook Hemley bought at an estate sale. In this book about reconstruction, Hemley posits that while we cannot change events once they have passed, we can return to those events to learn and sometimes perhaps change our understanding of them.
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Information
Subtopic
Social Science BiographiesIndex
Social SciencesTable of contents
- Cover
- Title Page
- Copyright Page
- Dedication
- Epigraph
- Contents
- List of Illustrations
- Acknowledgments
- Prologue
- Part 1
- In the Waiting Room of Dick Van Dyke
- Reading History to My Mother
- The Incomplete History of Mary Hilliard
- Jim’s Corner
- In the Theater of Half-Truths
- In the Storeroom of Figments
- A Word from Our Sponsors
- The Unmentionable One
- Part 2
- How to Change History
- Of the Affection of Fathers for Their Children
- A Reincarnation When I Didn’t Want One
- The Dachshund Endures
- On the Island of Our Fathers’ Ghosts
- For the Spirits of Guinaang
- Feast for the Departed
- In the Storeroom of Petty Hatreds
- Part 3
- How to Remove a Curse
- Something Must Be Understood
- Skinny Dipping with James Agee
- The Hypocrite’s Guide to Saving the Earth
- The Air Supply Guide to Matrimonial Bliss
- How to Change History, Redux
- The Writer across the Table
- In the Basement of Afflictions
- About Robin Hemley
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Yes, you can access How to Change History by Robin Hemley in PDF and/or ePUB format, as well as other popular books in Social Sciences & Social Science Biographies. We have over 1.5 million books available in our catalogue for you to explore.