Research Catalog

Title

The sum of trifles / Julia Ridley Smith.

Author

Smith, Julia Ridley

Publication

Athens : The University of Georgia Press, [2021]

Items in the Library & Off-site

Details

Description

238 pages; 22 cm.

Summary

"This first book by Julia Ridley Smith explores the death of the author's parents through the objects they left behind, offering both a poignant meditation on grief and a curious, thoughtful look at the ways that we live in a material culture, where everything from a work of art to a prosthetic leg contains a multitude of meanings. One piece uses her father's hi-fi as a way of talking about jazz, race, and the life of the artist, while another (previously published in the New England Review) zooms in on an antique mourning miniature to tell the story of her mother's final days. The book combines family lore, memories of growing up in the home of two antiques dealers, and an assessment of the narrator's literary and cultural influences as a white woman growing up in the late-twentieth century South. Organized as a series of essays exploring the things her parents left behind, The Sum of Trifles traces Smith's experience of loss as her elderly parents' health declines and they die, leaving the narrator and her family with the task of sorting, donating, and finally selling the contents of their home"--

Series Statement

Crux : the Georgia series in literary nonfiction

Uniform Title

Crux (Athens, Ga.)

Subjects

• Antique dealers
• Women college teachers
• Smith, Julia Ridley
• Biographies
• North Carolina
• Parents > Death > Psychological aspects
• Families
• Antiques > Psychological aspects
• Material culture > North Carolina
• Personal belongings > North Carolina > Psychological aspects
• Antiques > North Carolina > Psychological aspects
• Antique dealers > North Carolina > Biography
• Women college teachers > North Carolina > Biography
• Adult children of aging parents > Family relationships > North Carolina
• Smith, Julia Ridley > Family

Genre/Form

Biographies.

Bibliography (note)

• Includes bibliographical references.

Contents

Always magic -- Jazz on school nights -- The house beautiful ... or the house good enough -- The art of dying -- A miniature for my mother -- Legs -- Horror vacui -- The quilt -- Paper chase, a play of desire -- The sum of trifles.

ISBN

• 9780820360416
• 0820360414
• 9780820360423 (canceled/invalid)

LCCN

• 2021012971
• 99989520649

OCLC

• on1245956768
• 1245956768

Owning Institutions

Columbia University Libraries