Aftershocks // A Memoir (Paperback)

In the tradition ofThe Glass Castle, a deeply felt memoir from Whiting Awardwinner Nadia Owusu about the push and pull of belonging, the seismic emotional toll of family secrets, and the heart it takes to pull through.

Young Nadia Owusu followed her father, a United Nations official, from Europe to Africa and back again. Just as she and her family settled into a new home, her father would tell them it was time to say their goodbyes. The instability wrought by Nadias nomadic childhood was deepened by family secrets and fractures, both lived and inherited. Her Armenian American mother, who abandoned Nadia when she was two, would periodically reappear, only to vanish again. Her father, a Ghanaian, the great hero of her life, died when she was thirteen. After his passing, Nadias stepmother weighed her down with a revelation that was either a bombshell secret or a lie, rife with shaming innuendo.

With these and other ruptures, Nadia arrived in New York as a young woman feeling stateless, motherless, and uncertain about her future, yet eager to find her own identity. What followed, however, were periods of depression in which she struggled to hold herself and her siblings together.

Aftershocksis the way she hauled herself from the wreckage of her lifes perpetual quaking, the means by which she has finally come to understand that the only ground firm enough to count on is the one written into existence by her own hand.

Heralding a dazzling new writer,Aftershocksjoins the likes ofDont Lets Go to the Dogs Tonightand William StyronsDarkness Visible, and does for race identity what Maggie Nelson does for gender identity inThe Argonauts.

• Publisher: Simon & Schuster (August 3, 2021)
• Language: English
• Paperback: 320 pages
• ISBN-10: 1982111232
• ISBN-13: 9781982111236
• Item Weight: 9.1 ounces
• Dimensions: 5.5 x 0.7 x 8.38 inches