The Part That Burns by Jeannine Ouellette
Review by Bridget Lillethorup.
Jeannine Ouellette recognizes the impossibility of simply “letting go” of her past. In her debut memoir, The Part That Burns, she demonstrates how memories stick to our bones, how they are passed from parents to children, and how they manifest, sometimes gracefully and sometimes tragically, in day-to-day life. Her memoir is a series of essays crafted linearly; The Part That Burns begins with her childhood abuse and tumultuous relationship with her mother, moves through her young adult life bearing children, and ends with a stunning essay written half by her present self and half by her own, now adult, daughter. Although linear, each essay continually reaches back into the ones preceding it, questioning how the tumbleweeds of Wyoming, or the dark basement with the oily smell, make up the cells of her current living form. “Maybe healing, when it happens, is the result of a quantum entanglement, the swirling of a thousand winds”, Ouellette writes. It is this continual mode of examination that makes The Part That Burns an intellectual game of memory and reformation, an elegant ode to the buzzing state of coming together and falling apart in which each of us float. As Ouellette writes, “It takes so long to become anything. Especially yourself.”
In The Part That Burns, Ouellette masters the perspective of a child. Her essays are not just an act of remembering; they are a sincere motion of embodying her younger self. We hear her voice as it was as a child. In the first essay of the memoir, “Four Dogs, Maybe Five”, the pages read like diary entries, as Ouellette notes details only a child would fixate on and remember:
I like to watch Mama in the bathroom when she twists her thick hair up, holding the bobby pins in her mouth so she can use two hands. “Look at that, will you?” Mama says now. “I think this dog got hit.” On TV, the person is guessing the price of onion soup. I don’t like onions, but I watch anyway. Some kids will blurt things out just because they’re scared. But not me. I can keep secrets. Like how on my way home from school I saw Pete run across Albert Street, how the red car screeched, how Pete made that high, sharp sound.
Those small details—the bobby pins, the onion soup, the sharp sound—emphasize her innocent perspective in contrast to the painful events around her. Tragedy punctuates her life, and young Ouellette copes with hyper-attentiveness, reflected in these details. Ouellette leaves her present-self out of these early essays. There are no reflective or big picture moments from her adult voice, but this is purposeful, and compounds the feeling that we are hearing directly from Ouellette as a child. She writes, “I learn there are some things I can’t change. For example, the look on my face. But other things, I can change. Like the way I talk. It’s not that hard.” The energy of these early essays is delicate in its intricate details, but also charged, waiting for a match to ignite, explode, and examine how the bigger picture of her childhood abuse carved long lasting physical and mental scars.
There is an enticing magical element to these early essays, which carries throughout the memoir: doorways. “Doorways are formed by tree branches arching overhead. You can step under them into new worlds. You can even slip through on accident”, Ouellette writes. As a child, doorways are moments when she is able to escape her abusive household: an afternoon spent running toward the mountains, sitting under a cottonwood tree, or dreaming about fairy tales. As she gets older, doorways symbolize anything that could possibly grant Ouellette a new beginning. “When I grow up, I will be a mother. This is a doorway”, Ouellette writes from her childhood perspective. In the latter essays of this memoir, Ouellette explores the theme of inherited trauma, both from her mother and to her own children. As an adult, Ouellette begins to understand that, even if she passes through a doorway, there is no guarantee that the burning part inside of her will be erased. While pregnant, she attends a survivors support group. Later, she regrets this choice. She writes:
I brought my unborn son with me into that den of despair and wrath and goneness, I carried him there inside my spoiled body, week after week, to endure what was beyond anyone’s ability to endure. I did that to my perfect boy, and now I could never, ever take it back.
In an effort to avoid the patterns of her own mother, Ouellette lands hard on herself. But as each essay unfolds in The Part That Burns, it becomes clear that the doorways are not about moving on or starting over, but rather, the doorways (like motherhood) are a tool for examination and consciousness. The lack of reflective voice in the first part of the memoir is made-up for in the latter half. Each doorway empowers her to reflect on her experiences and unpack how they continue to propel her world. Ouellette writes, “Perhaps the turning of the year is always as much a burial as a birth, a marked page more than a blank one.” This is the brilliance of the memoir. It is a true reflection of how a body processes trauma: not in one fell swoop, not in letting go, but instead, in waves, cycles, examinations, and reflections. “Mist creates a visible beam of light, refracting and reflecting from suspended droplets. When you see me, I exist. When you see all of me, all of me exists”, Ouellette muses.
The Part That Burns is a memoir for anyone exploring their past, their familial roots, or anyone wondering how their own bodies carry what has gone before. While this is a heavy memoir (I caution anyone who has experienced sexual abuse to practice self care while they read), there are beautiful moments of light here, particularly in Ouellette’s loving admiration of her own children. As her daughter, Lillian Ouellette-Howitz, notes near the end of the memoir, “Flowers soak up whatever we put in their vases.” The Part That Burns is an encompassing exploration of all that our vases can hold.
Jeannine Ouellette recognizes the impossibility of simply “letting go” of her past. In her debut memoir, The Part That Burns, she demonstrates how memories stick to our bones, how they are passed from parents to children, and how they manifest, sometimes gracefully and sometimes tragically, in day-to-day life. Her memoir is a series of essays crafted linearly; The Part That Burns begins with her childhood abuse and tumultuous relationship with her mother, moves through her young adult life bearing children, and ends with a stunning essay written half by her present self and half by her own, now adult, daughter. Although linear, each essay continually reaches back into the ones preceding it, questioning how the tumbleweeds of Wyoming, or the dark basement with the oily smell, make up the cells of her current living form. “Maybe healing, when it happens, is the result of a quantum entanglement, the swirling of a thousand winds”, Ouellette writes. It is this continual mode of examination that makes The Part That Burns an intellectual game of memory and reformation, an elegant ode to the buzzing state of coming together and falling apart in which each of us float. As Ouellette writes, “It takes so long to become anything. Especially yourself.”
In The Part That Burns, Ouellette masters the perspective of a child. Her essays are not just an act of remembering; they are a sincere motion of embodying her younger self. We hear her voice as it was as a child. In the first essay of the memoir, “Four Dogs, Maybe Five”, the pages read like diary entries, as Ouellette notes details only a child would fixate on and remember:
I like to watch Mama in the bathroom when she twists her thick hair up, holding the bobby pins in her mouth so she can use two hands. “Look at that, will you?” Mama says now. “I think this dog got hit.” On TV, the person is guessing the price of onion soup. I don’t like onions, but I watch anyway. Some kids will blurt things out just because they’re scared. But not me. I can keep secrets. Like how on my way home from school I saw Pete run across Albert Street, how the red car screeched, how Pete made that high, sharp sound.
Those small details—the bobby pins, the onion soup, the sharp sound—emphasize her innocent perspective in contrast to the painful events around her. Tragedy punctuates her life, and young Ouellette copes with hyper-attentiveness, reflected in these details. Ouellette leaves her present-self out of these early essays. There are no reflective or big picture moments from her adult voice, but this is purposeful, and compounds the feeling that we are hearing directly from Ouellette as a child. She writes, “I learn there are some things I can’t change. For example, the look on my face. But other things, I can change. Like the way I talk. It’s not that hard.” The energy of these early essays is delicate in its intricate details, but also charged, waiting for a match to ignite, explode, and examine how the bigger picture of her childhood abuse carved long lasting physical and mental scars.
There is an enticing magical element to these early essays, which carries throughout the memoir: doorways. “Doorways are formed by tree branches arching overhead. You can step under them into new worlds. You can even slip through on accident”, Ouellette writes. As a child, doorways are moments when she is able to escape her abusive household: an afternoon spent running toward the mountains, sitting under a cottonwood tree, or dreaming about fairy tales. As she gets older, doorways symbolize anything that could possibly grant Ouellette a new beginning. “When I grow up, I will be a mother. This is a doorway”, Ouellette writes from her childhood perspective. In the latter essays of this memoir, Ouellette explores the theme of inherited trauma, both from her mother and to her own children. As an adult, Ouellette begins to understand that, even if she passes through a doorway, there is no guarantee that the burning part inside of her will be erased. While pregnant, she attends a survivors support group. Later, she regrets this choice. She writes:
I brought my unborn son with me into that den of despair and wrath and goneness, I carried him there inside my spoiled body, week after week, to endure what was beyond anyone’s ability to endure. I did that to my perfect boy, and now I could never, ever take it back.
In an effort to avoid the patterns of her own mother, Ouellette lands hard on herself. But as each essay unfolds in The Part That Burns, it becomes clear that the doorways are not about moving on or starting over, but rather, the doorways (like motherhood) are a tool for examination and consciousness. The lack of reflective voice in the first part of the memoir is made-up for in the latter half. Each doorway empowers her to reflect on her experiences and unpack how they continue to propel her world. Ouellette writes, “Perhaps the turning of the year is always as much a burial as a birth, a marked page more than a blank one.” This is the brilliance of the memoir. It is a true reflection of how a body processes trauma: not in one fell swoop, not in letting go, but instead, in waves, cycles, examinations, and reflections. “Mist creates a visible beam of light, refracting and reflecting from suspended droplets. When you see me, I exist. When you see all of me, all of me exists”, Ouellette muses.
The Part That Burns is a memoir for anyone exploring their past, their familial roots, or anyone wondering how their own bodies carry what has gone before. While this is a heavy memoir (I caution anyone who has experienced sexual abuse to practice self care while they read), there are beautiful moments of light here, particularly in Ouellette’s loving admiration of her own children. As her daughter, Lillian Ouellette-Howitz, notes near the end of the memoir, “Flowers soak up whatever we put in their vases.” The Part That Burns is an encompassing exploration of all that our vases can hold.
Bridget Lillethorup lives near some train tracks in flyover country. She is a graduate student and teaching assistant in the English department at the University of Nebraska at Omaha. Her work can be found in Literary Mama, The Rupture, Atticus Review, and in River Teeth’s “Beautiful Things” column. She is a blog editor at Literary Mama.
