My novel is about the past and it is set in a place my family knows very well: the mountains of southwest Virginia. Wish You Well is a tale of tragedy, hope survival, prejudice, hatred, justice and faith, spread among generations of family. That hodgepodge, of course, means that it is about life, in all its swell of good and enduring moments, in all its challenging sadness, and in all its mean-spirited ways.

While writing the novel, I surrounded myself with yellowed and curled photographs of my ancestors. I conjured up the tree-covered Appalachians, the rolling Virginia valleys, the sulking animals and the jerry-rigged farm buildings, and then I finally looked at the people, my people. My gaze would wander over their worn clothing and their sensible hats. I would trace their leathered hands and lean but strong torsos. Finally I would settle upon their faces, and I would stare at them, and they would seem to stare back. And I would wonder if they ever could imagine me as I am today, see me as sharply defined as I saw them.

Most did not live long enough for me to actually know them. Thus, I was left with recollections of aged relatives, family Bibles filled with loopy old-style cursive writing documenting births, marriages and deaths, old letters and personal possessions that have survived to reach my hands. To keep this chain of lives going is a responsibility that I find critical to what we refer to as our humanity. Understanding how others have suffered helps us deal with our own suffering. When we know that a grandmother or great-grandfather overcame hurdles that may dwarf the problems confronting folks today, it helps us get by. Conversely, when we learn of compassionate acts rendered long ago, it helps us to recognize in ourselves why we seek to help others.

Pain and suffering, happiness and wonder, dreams realized through hard work, passionate outcries against injustice, one person reaching out to take and hold and comfort another, all of these "human badges" have been with us a very long time. Really understanding this means that, even in the worst of possible times, we have the strong backs of family helping us to get through our troubles. In many ways it is a search for at least the semblance of truth to give historical context to our own lives. It may do nothing more than show why one generation of a family failed its descendants. Yet finding out why can often dispel a destructive ignorance that can easily taint each subsequent generation.

The passing down of memories and experiences is an innately human endeavor. When we do it, we often do it well. The problem is we are doing it less often. And once the chain is truly broken, repair may be impossible. And despite the experts telling us otherwise, I refuse to believe that our future is so different, that the past no longer has value as a touchstone. As the character Gavin Stevens said in William Faulkner's Requiem for a Nun, "The past is never dead. It's not even past."

 

Excerpted from The Washington Post's Book World, February 18, 2001, p. 8.

 

Reflections from Rosanne Cash

Excerpts from an interview regarding her album, "Black Cadillac", by Holly Lebowitz Rossi. Her reply to the question: "Do you see this album as a love letter or a farewell to your parents?"

"No - it's not a tribute record, it's not a farewell, it's not a goodbye note. It's about what I discovered in the mourning process about my relationship to them, which I believe continues, about re-negotiating the terms of those relationships, because they're not over, although I'm the only one talking. And about the emptiness, the silence that comes when you're the only one talking. It's about an attempt to connect and find what survives death - the ancestral thread, and love."

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