“A treat for the senses, a tug at the heartstrings, and layers of insightful reflections” - review

Jane Goette will speak about her recently-published memoir, A River Road Memoir - a journey through a young girl’s idyllic childhood in the rural South to her restless adolescence when the Civil Rights struggle becomes urgent and personal to her family. The unfolding story is told through the second daughter’s eyes. Jane is a serious child, the one her father calls, “a tree full of owls,” always thinking, observing, wondering about meanings.

Jane is three when the Goettes move into an old house on River Road, bordered by pastures and sugarcane fields with the Mississippi River in front. Invisible threads of history form the tapestry of a story that began before her birth when her mother and father’s families fought on opposite sides of the American Civil War. Unresolved conflicts continue around the family table as the Civil Rights movement evolves, the Vietnam War begins, and chemical plants spring like poison mushrooms along the river.

Set in the 1950s and 1960s, the conflicts reflected in this book are hauntingly familiar to readers today as Americans continue to battle over the nation’s identity and values.

Jane will do a reading and answer questions from the audience.

Listen to an interview with Jane here.