The Rest is Memory, a book review

The Rest is Memory, a book review
Lily Tuck
Liveright Publishing Corp. 2025

I’ve written before at the blog about Lily Tuck. Tuck never seems to do just one thing; her work spans/defies categorization. The title, taken from a Louise Glück poem, NOSTOS, dwelling in the subterranean of memory: “We look at the world once, in childhood. The rest is memory.”

Glück/Tuck. Tuck is a master of the hybrid, meta novel. A mix of memoir, fiction, Wikipedia, fate and fairy tale. In this small book (114 pages) she employs cruel irony, omniscient voice, pathos, twists and wishes. Things are not always as they appear: there is senseless evil, random goodness, power play showing winners and losers. All the elements of what makes a story and history.

It all starts with a photograph of a concentration camp inmate. The small prisoner, overwhelmed in her striped jacket with shorn head, stares into the lens. The camera captures her soul.  Tuck works outward, painting a fictional picture filled in with facts, historical tidbits. The girl, Czeslawa, could be any of us, so too her mother and the neighboring community all sent to Auschwitz. Not Jews, but Catholic Poles, dispensed with for their homes, property; the region was meant to be colonialized by Germans. It’s easy to forget that the jaws of the Nazi Monster gobbled up not one but a number of different groups of people, anyone who stood in their way had to be destroyed.

Truly the facts are more surreal than the fictional overlays in the book.

Though, small, the book carries a punch. I had to read it in dribbles as too much made me feel sick. I could not look away, the cover picture and the words have stayed with me. If you are looking to discover new forms, Tuck does not disappoint. If you are looking for a feel-good book—keep moving.