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Buryin' Daddy: Putting My Lebanese, Catholic, Southern Baptist Childhood to Rest (Willie Morris Books in Memoir and Biography) ReviewBuryin' Daddy: Putting My Lebanese, Catholic, Southern Baptist Childhood to Rest is a worthy offering in the University Press of Missisippi "Willie Morris Books in Memoir and Biography" series.
The careful arrangement of everyday events and detailed recounting of specific conversations build what could have been just an autobiographical memoir of growing up in a small Southern town into a compelling mystery. Using the title as a clue, it is apparent that the friction between the author and her father is leading somewhere. The reader is moved through the multicultural universe of this small, Southern town, each ethnic group pulling and tugging on the loyalty of the author.
The Lebanese (really Syrian) enclave came down the Mississippi River in the early 1900's, peddling small wares house to house. Some members stopped in Vicksburg while others moved up the Yazoo River to the thriving river port town. By Nicholas' generation they have become a substantial element in the relatively large Catholic Church and part and parcel of the business community, owning the town's primary car dealership and Main Street grocery and dry goods stores.
Members of the original group marry outside their Lebanese community and the addition of Southern Baptist small farmers from Yazoo County and non-Lebanese, though Catholic, members create some of the tensions that permeate the life of the author. The school integrates and attitudes toward the black community enter the mix.
However, the primary friction arises when the author's mother insists her growing family must leave the grandparent's sheltering home on Grand Avenue (the reader can tell the kind of home by the name of the street) and have a home of their own. The father's discipline appears capricious after the grandparent's benign leadership. He apparently is not as financially successful as his father and the author sees the family denied essential creature comforts.
The separateness of the author, in spite of a plethora of relatives who are always about, is palpable. Tension is exaggerated as the author takes on what she perceives are the problems her father creates for her mother. We get blunt, unvarnished descriptions of unpleasant surroundings in the author's life.
Father dies unexpectedly in the first third of the book. The rest of the short narrative is a nuanced, compelling story of getting away, first to an eastern college then to success in New York in the publishing world. Continual visits home mature the author, who emotionally is firmly tied to this family and this town. She comes to grips with the death of her younger brother through sorting through memories of him with others who loved him also. She is required to accept the beloved grandmother's dementia. Most importantly, she learns many facts about her grandfather and especially her father.
Burying Daddy is a process, along with coming to grips with her harassing memories.
The book takes on the universal experience of maturing. The power of the book makes us realize that we, too, grew up with tunnel vision, only partially knowing and understanding our parents and our world. Forgiveness is sometimes the only answer.
The minutiae of everyday conversations is relieved by lyrical passages describing Yazoo City and the Mississippi Delta that it borders. They remind the reader of the series namesake Yazoo author Willie Morris who also responded to the beauty of that region.
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