Book with a heartfelt examination of relationships in family and unsentimental interrogation of the complex nature of parent-child love.
By Viktorija Getneryte
Yesterday, on 27th of March, the book that was named one of the "20 Best New Books to Read in March" by PopSugar alongside one of “The Million's Most Anticipated Books of 2018”, before even being published, was released to the public. The book written by Anya Yurchychyn is a haunting, unforgettable story about secrets, childhood ghosts and a daughter's journey to understand her parents.
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The author grew up in Boston, in a house filled with the
souvenirs from her parent’s adventures around the world – Egypt, Saudi Arabia,
Italy and more. After her father dies in Ukraine in a car accident, and her
mother drinks herself to death 16 years after, Anya gets a sense of relief, that
makes her feel ashamed of herself – she never truly loved her parents, as her
unstable father was mentally abusive and mother could not protect her. Author comes back to her home in Boston to
clean it, but in a dust of all the artefacts from all round the world she finds
a story about different people who were in love, traveled, had passion for
life, friends, dreams, interesting personalities and a lot of secrets.
The book gained big publicity after a prologue was published on BuzzFeed on April 2013. At that moment
Anya Yurchychyn was still on a journey to get to know her parents, but she felt
guilty to dig so deep into their secrets and to share them with public.
She wrote “Going through my parents' stuff didn't make me suddenly miss them,
but I became more intrigued by them every day. I wanted to know more and more
about them, to solve their mysteries. At the same time, I felt a corresponding,
if conflicting, urge to speak, or write, about what many people seemed to think
was unspeakable: my ever-present lack of grief. So I decided to combine these
seemingly divergent impulses into an blog called My Dead Parents, which I kept
anonymous out of respect for my family.”
But she decided to go ahead with the investigation and to
seek answers beyond the tantalizing, incomplete records her parents left
behind - Yurchyshyn interviewed friends and family members to learn about
difficult personalities her parents had, as well as traveled to seek more in-depth
answers about her father’s death.
It is a debut book for Anya Yurchychyn and it is a gripping,
novelistic page-turner, that unfolds the dimension of relationship between
children and parents, and the idea, that two might never understand the depth
and magnitude of each other.
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