The Istoriaphile’s Corner

There’s a reason some people love this time of year; the same reason other folks hate it: family. Tradition dictates we spend part of our winter holidays with individuals tied to us by DNA or marriage and who you are determines whether you like or loathe the custom.  My husband says, there’s a reason family push our buttons faster than anyone else; they installed most of them.  Still, they are the people who define our earliest selves and even when they’re gone, their voices come back in our memories like the song of  The Grass Harp, Truman Capote’s novella about his Alabama childhood.  While it’s not the obvious choice for December, the Grass Harp is a tender remembrance of how love and family shape us all. Collin Fenwick is the narrator of The Grass Harp, a boy (like the author) cast into the care of maiden aunts.  Aunt Verena is the financial provider, the richest soul in town and, as Truman says, the earning of her wealth had not made her an easy woman.  The other aunt, Dolly, is nature-focused and terrified of all humans in authority but self-sustaining because of her homemade dropsy cure, an old-fashioned name for swelling….