Listen

Listen is a memoir of voices, the voices of parents that linger in the ears of children until the day when those children are able to sound their own note. A domineering father and a professor of languages and literature in the 1950s and '60s, Victor has four women trapped in his orbit-his long-suffering wife and his three well-behaved daughters. "e;Teacher, poet, translator"e; is how he wants his gravestone to read, and in life he is dedicated to passing on to his family the great cultural achievements of western civilization-poetry, philosophy, religion, music, art. But he leaves darker gifts as well, in particular to his daughter Wendy the most traumatic legacy of all: incest. A major achievement and a stunning debut, Listen is about how families shape their memories and how even things that are never spoken about have potent echoes. It's also a memoir that chronicles a poet's apprenticeship to words, the story of a daughter who listened and who, with the gift for poetry her father gave her, learned to translate the darkest secrets of their past.