Stories of our lives : memory, history, narrative / Frank de Caro.

The author demonstrates the value of personal narratives in enlightening our lives and our world. We all live with legends, family sagas, and anecdotes that shape our selves and give meaning to our recollections. Featuring an array of stories from the author's personal life and years of field research as a folklorist, the book is part memoir and part exploration of how the stories we tell, listen to, and learn play an integral role in shaping our sense of self. This narrative includes stories within the story: among them a near-mythic capture of his golden-haired grandmother by Plains Indians, a quintessential Italian rags-to-riches grandfather, and his own experiences growing up in culturally rich 1950s New York City, living in India amid the fading glories of a former princely state, conducting field research on Day of the Dead altars in Mexico, and coming home to a battered New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina. This book shows that our lives are interesting, and that the stories we tell - however particular to our own circumstances or trivial they may seem to others - reveal something about ourselves, our societies, our cultures, and our larger human existence.--description provided by publisher.

The Golden-Haired Maiden -- 7002 Ridge -- Foreigners Arrive -- The Lake -- Beyond 7002 -- Becoming the East Village -- Tinkly Temple Bells -- Life in a Cornfield -- Mexico -- Long Ago and Far Away : Another Passage to India -- Katrina : We Leave, We Return, Stories Abound -- Contexts and Meanings : A Brief Afterword.

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