Who are we without our families?<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
Tacoma editor and writer Jenny Bartoy poses this fundamental question in the introduction of \u201cNo Contact: Writers on Estrangement” (out April 28<\/span> from Catapult). The book, which Bartoy edited, collects 32 different perspectives on family dynamics and moves between memoir, fiction and poetry.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n Each essay approaches the subject of estrangement through a different lens. \u201cNo Contact\u201d is what Bartoy, who has published work in The Seattle Times<\/span>, calls a \u201cchorus of voices\u201d that highlights both how unique and universal estrangement can be.<\/p>\n Bartoy cut ties with her father two decades ago. During that time, her search for resources to help guide the breakup came up empty. It was a confusing, difficult experience. There was seemingly no help beyond advice to rekindle the relationship with her father.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cHint: I was the problem,\u201d she writes in the book\u2019s introduction. \u201cBut from where I stood, reconciliation did not seem feasible \u2026 I had to find my own way.\u201d<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n That search would eventually lead Bartoy to edit this anthology. For years, she kept a list of books and articles that touched on the topic of estrangement. As Bartoy reached out to writers she had come across in her research, the book began to take shape. Instead of writing about her own story, \u201cNo Contact\u201d became a type of community that Bartoy said she felt well-suited to help foster.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m an editor,” she said. “That\u2019s my job, and it just felt much more natural to shape a story.\u201d<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n Many of the stories in \u201cNo Contact\u201d come out of the Northwest. Bartoy\u2019s anthology features pieces from local authors, including Kristen Millares Young, Jane Wong, Mattilda Bernstein Sycamore, Oslyn Serratos and Gabriela Denise Frank.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n Young\u2019s piece recalls a chance encounter with her father after years of not seeing one another. Sycamore\u2019s essay examines the complex relationship between her and her grandmother. \u201cWhy are you wasting your talent, she would say to me, over and over,\u201d Sycamore writes, \u201cfor the last twenty years of her life, as we talked less and less.\u201d<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n Frank\u2019s, “ESTR NGEMENT,”<\/span> is one of the more affecting pieces in the collection. The essay, written in visceral second person, recalls a childhood home dominated by a person who yelled, whose \u201cfuse burned quick.\u201d Frank\u2019s narrator works to separate from this parent figure, but the process of letting go doesn\u2019t end there \u2014 ” \u2026 you\u00a0let go over, then over, then over.\u201d<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n By the time you finish the essay, you don\u2019t realize how form and function are melding. In the author\u2019s note, Frank writes that the essay is a lipogram and has excluded words that contain the letter \u201cA.\u201d The piece, she writes, is \u201can exercise in writing around what\u2019s estranged for me; father, dad, family.\u201d<\/p>\n Cheryl Strayed, the Portland-based author of the bestselling memoir \u201cWild,\u201d ends the collection with an adapted version of her \u201cDear Sugar\u201d column. The reader asks whether it was right to end her relationship with an abusive father. Strayed answers by reflecting on her own father and finally getting to a place of healing where \u201c \u2026 you recognize entirely that you will thrive not in spite of your losses and sorrows, but because of them.\u201d<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n Part of the challenge in editing \u201cNo Contact\u201d was ordering and organizing 32 different voices on the same topic. But Bartoy\u2019s vision of creating space for a new type of conversation around estrangement guided the process.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cI wanted to push back against this trope of reconciliation being inevitable and desired,\u201d she said. The heavy focus on parents voicing their discontent, Bartoy added, left little space for adult children or other family members to explain and express their side of the story.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n Family members are estranged for all kinds of reasons, Bartoy said. Her approach with \u201cNo Contact\u201d was to represent as many of them as possible. She also aimed to cover different degrees of estrangement (\u201cno contact, low contact, intermittent contact\u201d) and vary the type of family relationship featured in the piece (parents in addition to \u201csiblings, cousins, grandparents\u201d).<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n One story Bartoy couldn\u2019t find\u00a0was one written with humor. \u201cThat was just a no-go,\u201d she said. Instead of humor providing a break from the emotional weight of estrangement, Bartoy focused on varying the length and emotional weight of pieces, as well as including flash poetry and experimental pieces that \u201cgive some distance to the topic.\u201d<\/p>\n When Bartoy put out a call for submissions, she got more than 200 responses. The reaction to the \u201cNo Contact\u201d project proved that people were \u201chungry for this conversation,\u201d Bartoy said. Estrangement is ongoing and often changing. It\u2019s a form of grief, she said. But working on something like \u201cNo Contact\u201d has created a new community for the featured writers. Bartoy and the contributors have become friends after working together.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cAnd it\u2019s a deep friendship because it\u2019s rooted in something so difficult and personal, and seeing each other, seeing the hard truth of what we\u2019ve all lived through,\u201d Bartoy said.<\/p>\n