Typically, when reading for the Book of the Month Club, I finish before my partner. I have a strict timeline for finishing. My partner, not so much. Sometimes, if he’s unsure about a genre or author, he’ll wait for me to finish first. When I finished Somebody’s Daughter, my bookmark was the only one wedged between the pages. I mentioned I’d finished it over dinner one night, and he asked me what I’d thought. 

This is normally an easy question for me to answer. I enjoy using my partner as a sounding board for the ideas I plan to talk about in these reflections, ensuring they don’t sound too out there or nit-picky. But, for the first time in several months, I found myself having difficulty answering beyond, “It was really good.” Even after reading other reviews, watching interviews, and rereading the first few chapters, I felt stuck. It bothered me that I couldn’t find the words to explain further.

My inability to articulate what I liked about Somebody’s Daughter may have had something to do with the style. It was the first “official” memoir I’ve ever read with the intent to reflect and examine it afterward. All the other books I’ve read for this blog that dealt with personal experience were either shrouded with fictional elements (On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous) or plumbed to create personal essays (The Collected Schizophrenias). Both of those structures, fiction and essay-writing, are familiar to me, and I can pull on that familiarity to critically examine and critique. A memoir? I’ve never thought about how to approach one– until now.

To call Ashley C. Ford’s book, Somebody’s Daughter, a memoir about the author’s childhood is to undersell it. Throughout, we see the effects of her family life touched by the incarceration of her father, the abuse of her mother, sexual assault, and race. Each subject is woven into the grand overarching framing of the book which features her father’s imminent release from prison. Somebody’s Daughter is filled with large emotions and expansive topics, but those elements and plot points are not what the book is. Therein lies the reason I struggled to talk about it. 

A memoir has no direct plot. It can’t– the author’s life is ongoing and, unlike in fiction, real-life events are rarely wrapped up in tidy bows. In lieu of a plot is a compilation of experiences the author has forged together to tell a story. This can be a hard sell for authors, publishers, and readers alike; after all, how many memoirs of people you’ve never heard of do you go pick up at your local bookstore? There’s only one way a first-time author can create a memoir that sticks the landing and keeps readers’ attention: exemplary craft. 

In rereading the first few chapters, I caught onto Ford’s careful sentence structures and euphonious word choices. The actual language is deceptively simple, but the way she chooses to punctuate and the selection of words she uses is incredibly intentional. Longer sentences appear as her emotions spiral. Shorter sentences inform the reader of impending panic or danger. Her word choice reflects the age of the memory, granting a childlike wonder and beauty to the descriptions and metaphors early in the book. She even mentions it later while talking about her babysitting job: “… I seemed to have infinite patience for children. Unlike some adults, I never quit remembering what it was like to be one.” This is apparent in how she writes about her childhood, able to evoke youth and “big feelings” without coming across as saccharine or childish. 

One of the reasons this language works so well is because it is balanced out by the characterization. Ford has taken great care to not shy away from the gray of humanity. Her mother is abusive and difficult to have a relationship with, and yet Ford balances those sections with times her mother showed her great care and love. Her grandmother may have been a safe space, a break from the storm, but that didn’t mean she couldn’t be petty, vindictive, or rude. At no point does any person in the book receive a blank check to be “good” or “bad”, a refreshing and realistic view into the complexity of personhood. That characterization, and the willingness to depict hard-to-define relationships, anchored the book in reality in a way that’s difficult to accomplish in other genres.

The area I was most concerned about while reading, though, was structure. At first, Ford’s childhood memories have tenuous connections, often jumping around in the first part of the book with no other guidance than the chronic passage of time. As the reader nears the end, though, the structure and framing become clear. Her father’s release date from prison bookends each side of the piece, centering her emotional growth around his absence and unreal presence. His reintroduction to society and family, and impending reintegration into the family’s lives, mirrors Ford’s own emotions in trying to reconnect and reintroduce herself to her family after everything she’s weathered. It’s difficult. It will take work on everyone’s part. Much like the snakes gripped together, burning in the fire her grandmother set, Ford has chosen to keep loving, even when it’s hard. 

While I’d honed in on Ford’s impeccable craft, I still struggled with understanding the “point” of Somebody’s Daughter. So many of the books I consume have some sort of theme, or a question they’re trying to answer. But a memoir? A memoir is life. Life doesn’t follow the rules for literary themes or philosophical questions. I fought to find a “point” for days, flipping through the book and searching my recollection of the plot points for answers. I finally found it when listening to an interview between John Green and Ashley C. Ford. When asked about the power of memoir, Ford says, “Memoir, in and of itself, asserts that every single person, every human life, also has a story.”

It clicked. The “point” is sonder. For those unfamiliar, the term “sonder” is a neologism coined in 2012 which is defined as, “The profound feeling of realizing that everyone, including strangers passing in the street, has a life as complex as one’s own, which they are constantly living despite one’s personal lack of awareness of it.” It’s the same feeling you may get from having a conversation with a stranger or opening your eyes to people you don’t notice day-to-day. Memoirs are meant to evoke this connection to humanity, to encourage empathy with someone who may be completely unlike you in every way but for their experiences and emotions. If this is the “point” of a memoir, Ford has done splendidly. 

While this book was emotionally trying at times, I am so happy it made it into this year’s Book of the Month club. Not only was it incredibly well-written, but it challenged the way I critique books. My initial reaction, “It’s really good,” still stands, but I’m glad it forced me to find new ways to communicate why. I highly recommend Somebody’s Daughter if you haven’t gotten to it yet– it’s a short but immensely impactful read. 

I hope you’ll all join me next month for March’s book, Anxious People. Until then, happy reading and happy sipping!