from BOOKLIFE REVIEWS:In this second volume of memoir (after The House with Round Windows), Snodgrass explores his family strengths and challenges, from their foundational influence on his life and art to the cracks that undermined their happiness—cracks widened, he states, by his older brother, acclaimed poet W.D. Snodgrass. After trying several times to pin down that relationship, Snodgrass, now 84, is finally ready to move on. With a sentimental, chummy style, he recounts his life under his brother’s long shadow, coming to the conclusion that the most important story is "how I’ve tried to establish myself as a person without him, or maybe despite him, and become an artist in my own right.” An accomplished photographer keenly interested in multimedia storytelling, Snodgrass skillfully fuses his twin talents here, pairing monochromatic images with vivid prose. This results in a powerful emotional effect, as when his dark portrait series of old toys is set alongside passages that recount wholesome childhood memories, or his stark recollection, paired with joyful family photos, of how his beloved sister Barbara died unexpectedly at age 27, “leaving those who were left to shift back and forth in compensation, try to achieve some stability, a balance that would never be found again.” Readers will sense the disturbances that marked the author’s coming of age, those moments when he grew insecure in his own memories and unsure of whom in his family he could trust. He anchors those stories to a unique framing device, casting his wife, Marty, as an audience of one, seemingly listening to the book as it's being written. She frequently interrupts his reminiscences with an editorial perspective from the present day; the result is sometimes funny and sometimes jarring, but fits the book’s theme of finding balance, of looking back over a life composed of “light and dark, right and wrong, each providing the opposition to define the other.” Takeaway: Striking multimedia exploration of family, legacy, and self.