Reviews
Raised in Yazoo City [Mississippi] in a wildly divergent family of Lebanese Catholic immigrants and Baptist sharecroppers, Teresa Nicholas eventually leaves Mississippi. But as her writing proves, she never truly escapes.
Her memoir begins with childhood days near much-loved grandparents, both in their comfortable house and behind counters filled with potted meats and fruit pies at her grandfather's store. Then, without explanation, her father moves the family to a condemned duplex, run-down and awful. Here he often shifts, without warning, from the daddy who makes them laugh to someone as fierce as "one of the afternoon thunderstorms that crisscrossed the Delta."
As a rebellious teen, Teresa Nicholas lived in Mississippi during history-making events. Her school desegregated, the town changed, and she and her father often disagreed. Remarkably, after his death, she yearns to discover who he really was: what's behind his obsession with monkey calendars plastered in his bedroom, derelict cars, the coin collection.
Readers are in for a treat as Nicholas, together with her mother, peel back the deep layers to get at the truth behind family secrets. A surprisingly humorous and wonderfully detailed story, Buryin' Daddy is one readers won't quickly forget. --Augusta Scattergood, DELTA MAGAZINE
Her voice is pitch-perfect, and I can identify with her loving shame over how and where she grew up...Even if you don't directly identify with Nicholas' background, this is a memoir that is difficult to put down. (I'm reading it like I used to read Nancy Drew books as a kid--until my eyes won't stay open. And I dread finishing it.) It has a thread of mystery about Nicholas' daddy driving the narrative. He was an exotic, quirky, flawed mixture of Southern-of-a-certain-era and his Arab ancestry. He was far from perfect--neither were most of our daddys--and his imperfections can be amusing and heartbreaking all at once.
Ultimately, though, I'm sensing that the beauty of the book is going to be how the death of a father brings Nicholas back to her mother. And, yes, I can identify with that one, too.
--Donna Ladd, JACKSON FREE PRESS
A descendant of Lebanese Catholic immigrants on her father's side and Baptist sharecroppers on her mother's, the author was rocked by conflicting opinions, especially her father's stance on civil rights. After twenty-five years of working for Crown Publishers in New York, she returned to Yazoo City only to discover that there was more to her childhood than she originally had thought. In this insightful and provocative book, Teresa Nicholas uncovers truths about her 1950s childhood and her parents. --Nan Graves Goodman, PORTICO MAGAZINE
In Buryin' Daddy, Teresa Nicholas could have chosen to settle scores in dealing with her past. Instead, she wrote honestly and openly, revealing about herself and her family without bitterness or malice. In taking this approach, it's made her memoir a book you want to share with others who have lost someone with whom they had a complicated relationship. And it is a book to be cherished. --W. Ralph Eubanks, Director of Publishing at the Library of Congress, on GOODREADS
The title says it. Buryin' Daddy--life after the death of a husband and father in (the dropped g gives us the clue) the American Deep South. The title says it, but it doesn't say it all, not by a long shot. This elegantly crafted memoir tells a story that many of us have lived through, suffering the early death of one parent and being drawn into the devastating, virtually life-destroying grief of the other. Teresa Nicholas' memoir centers on the unexpected death of her father in Yazoo City, Mississippi and her stroke-crippled mother's shattered devastation, but her story extends far and in many directions from that center. Memoir writers are always urged to tell the truth--whatever it is. Nicholas does, often almost painfully bringing to life of her family through several generations: Her fiery, feisty grandmother now consigned to assisted living, her siblings, her friends, but most especially her parents. She also captures living in the south in the mid-twentieth century, the kindliness, yes, but also the prejudices and the cruelties. In her author's acknowledgements, Nicholas comments that the book took seven years to write. I am glad she took her time, because she has made it exactly right. The characters are real, her examination of her own feelings and reactions, her coming to understand her own emotions about her parents all ring true. Her language is precise and fluid. She is skilled indeed, and the book is a pleasure to read. I do hope that this new fan will not have to wait seven more years, to read the next one. --by Trilla Pando for Story Circle Book Reviews
Buryin' Daddy is a haunting,candid memoir...Nicholas's steel-trap memory and vivid descriptions provide the reader with fading glimpses of a time and place familiar to generations of Mississippians. Emotive and permeated with melancholy, Nicholas eventually secures a sense of peace and forgiveness...Readers with an affinity for the Deep South or those struggling with the past can find reflective solace in Nicholas's forthright remembrance.
--Legends, The Mississippi Arts and Entertainment Review
Her memoir begins with childhood days near much-loved grandparents, both in their comfortable house and behind counters filled with potted meats and fruit pies at her grandfather's store. Then, without explanation, her father moves the family to a condemned duplex, run-down and awful. Here he often shifts, without warning, from the daddy who makes them laugh to someone as fierce as "one of the afternoon thunderstorms that crisscrossed the Delta."
As a rebellious teen, Teresa Nicholas lived in Mississippi during history-making events. Her school desegregated, the town changed, and she and her father often disagreed. Remarkably, after his death, she yearns to discover who he really was: what's behind his obsession with monkey calendars plastered in his bedroom, derelict cars, the coin collection.
Readers are in for a treat as Nicholas, together with her mother, peel back the deep layers to get at the truth behind family secrets. A surprisingly humorous and wonderfully detailed story, Buryin' Daddy is one readers won't quickly forget. --Augusta Scattergood, DELTA MAGAZINE
Her voice is pitch-perfect, and I can identify with her loving shame over how and where she grew up...Even if you don't directly identify with Nicholas' background, this is a memoir that is difficult to put down. (I'm reading it like I used to read Nancy Drew books as a kid--until my eyes won't stay open. And I dread finishing it.) It has a thread of mystery about Nicholas' daddy driving the narrative. He was an exotic, quirky, flawed mixture of Southern-of-a-certain-era and his Arab ancestry. He was far from perfect--neither were most of our daddys--and his imperfections can be amusing and heartbreaking all at once.
Ultimately, though, I'm sensing that the beauty of the book is going to be how the death of a father brings Nicholas back to her mother. And, yes, I can identify with that one, too.
--Donna Ladd, JACKSON FREE PRESS
A descendant of Lebanese Catholic immigrants on her father's side and Baptist sharecroppers on her mother's, the author was rocked by conflicting opinions, especially her father's stance on civil rights. After twenty-five years of working for Crown Publishers in New York, she returned to Yazoo City only to discover that there was more to her childhood than she originally had thought. In this insightful and provocative book, Teresa Nicholas uncovers truths about her 1950s childhood and her parents. --Nan Graves Goodman, PORTICO MAGAZINE
In Buryin' Daddy, Teresa Nicholas could have chosen to settle scores in dealing with her past. Instead, she wrote honestly and openly, revealing about herself and her family without bitterness or malice. In taking this approach, it's made her memoir a book you want to share with others who have lost someone with whom they had a complicated relationship. And it is a book to be cherished. --W. Ralph Eubanks, Director of Publishing at the Library of Congress, on GOODREADS
The title says it. Buryin' Daddy--life after the death of a husband and father in (the dropped g gives us the clue) the American Deep South. The title says it, but it doesn't say it all, not by a long shot. This elegantly crafted memoir tells a story that many of us have lived through, suffering the early death of one parent and being drawn into the devastating, virtually life-destroying grief of the other. Teresa Nicholas' memoir centers on the unexpected death of her father in Yazoo City, Mississippi and her stroke-crippled mother's shattered devastation, but her story extends far and in many directions from that center. Memoir writers are always urged to tell the truth--whatever it is. Nicholas does, often almost painfully bringing to life of her family through several generations: Her fiery, feisty grandmother now consigned to assisted living, her siblings, her friends, but most especially her parents. She also captures living in the south in the mid-twentieth century, the kindliness, yes, but also the prejudices and the cruelties. In her author's acknowledgements, Nicholas comments that the book took seven years to write. I am glad she took her time, because she has made it exactly right. The characters are real, her examination of her own feelings and reactions, her coming to understand her own emotions about her parents all ring true. Her language is precise and fluid. She is skilled indeed, and the book is a pleasure to read. I do hope that this new fan will not have to wait seven more years, to read the next one. --by Trilla Pando for Story Circle Book Reviews
Buryin' Daddy is a haunting,candid memoir...Nicholas's steel-trap memory and vivid descriptions provide the reader with fading glimpses of a time and place familiar to generations of Mississippians. Emotive and permeated with melancholy, Nicholas eventually secures a sense of peace and forgiveness...Readers with an affinity for the Deep South or those struggling with the past can find reflective solace in Nicholas's forthright remembrance.
--Legends, The Mississippi Arts and Entertainment Review