Reading the Waves

Fifteen years on from The Chronology of Water, an exploration of storytelling as a source of healing. ‘What if we could read our own past, our memories, even our bodies, as if they too were books open to endless interpretation?’ Haunted by her father’s abuse, her complicated dynamic with her disabled mother and the death of her child, Lidia Yuknavitch revisits her past with an author’s gaze. At the age of sixty, her outlook on herself has changed. She wonders differently, remembers differently. She comes to discover that – like any narrative – her memories are open to interpretation, to being reimagined from different perspectives. And as Yuknavitch rewrites and reclaims her early life, she unburdens herself of old wounds and alters her future.