Annie's Ghosts
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JOURNEY INTO A FAMILY SECRET PROGRAM GUIDE | READER’S GUIDE | PARTNER LIST | BOOK EXCERPT | SPECIAL EVENTS JOIN THE STATEWIDE DISCUSSION. Annie’s Ghosts: A Journey into a Family Secret Steve Luxenberg Beth Luxenberg was an only child. Or so everyone thought. Six months after Beth’s death, her secret emerged. It had a name: Annie. 2 | GREAT MICHIGAN READ Welcome to the Great Michigan Read! The Michigan Humanities Council’s Great Michigan Read is a book club for the entire state. With a statewide focus on a single book – Annie’s Ghosts: A Journey into a Family Secret by Steve Luxenberg – it aims to connect us as Michiganians by deepening our understanding of our state, our society, and our history. ABOUT THE MICHIGAN HUMANITIES COUNCIL HOW CAN I PARTICIPATE? CURRENT MICHIGAN HUMANITIES The Michigan Humanities Council connects people Pick up a copy of Annie’s Ghosts and supporting COUNCIL PROGRAMS INCLUDE: and communities by supporting quality cultural materials at Meijer, your local library, or your Great Michigan Read: A statewide reading and discussion programs. It is Michigan’s nonprofit affiliate of the favorite bookseller – or download the e-book. program featuring a work of Michigan literature. National Endowment for the Humanities. Since 1974, Read the book, share and discuss it with your the Michigan Humanities Council has supported friends, and participate in Great Michigan Read Prime Time Family Reading Time®: Using children’s communities through family reading programs, activities in your community and online. literature, this family literacy program stimulates critical special cultural and historical exhibits, book thinking about humanities themes and bonds families Register your library, school, company, or book club discussions, author tours, scholarly lectures and around the practice of reading. and receive copies of reader’s guides, teacher’s mentors, films, cultural celebrations, and school guides, bookmarks, and other informational materi - Arts & Humanities Touring Program: Provides grants to programs and performances that have reached als at no cost. Nonprofit organizations – including support community performances drawn from a juried millions of Michiganians. schools and libraries – may apply for discussion kits, list of Michigan’s top 175 performing and visual artists, WHY ANNIE’S GHOSTS ? which include free copies of Annie’s Ghosts . authors, musicians, historians, and storytellers. Annie’s Ghosts is part memoir, part detective story, Nonprofit organizations may also apply for $500 Poetry Out Loud: A national poetry recitation competi - and part history. Employing his skills as a journalist quick grants to support programs related to the tion for high school students. By encouraging youth to while struggling to maintain his empathy as a son, 2013-14 Great Michigan Read. learn about great poetry through memorization and author and Detroit native Steve Luxenberg pieces For more details, including an updated calendar of performance, students master public speaking skills, build together the story of his mother’s motivations, his events, additional resources, and to register your self-confidence, and learn about their literary heritage. aunt’s unknown life, and the times in which they organization, visit www.michiganhumanities.org, lived. His search takes him to imperial Russia and Journey Stories: This Smithsonian traveling exhibit join the Michigan Humanities Council Facebook Depression-era Detroit, through the Holocaust in explores individual stories that illustrate the critical roles group, or follow @mihumanities (#greatMIread) Ukraine and the Philippine war zone, and back travel and movement have played in building our diverse on Twitter. to the hospitals where Annie and many others American society. It is touring five rural Michigan languished in anonymity. communities in 2013-14. Annie’s Ghosts is a story about family secrets, A SPECIAL INVITATION Bridging Cultures: A new initiative of the National personal journeys, genealogy, mental disability Endowment for the Humanities that engages the power and illness, poverty, and immigration. It is a story FOR TEACHERS of the humanities to promote understanding and mutual of reframing one’s self-understanding once a fam - respect for people with diverse histories, cultures and Annie’s Ghosts is appropriate for ily secret is revealed, providing insight into how perspectives within the United States and abroad. high school and college students. our identities are shaped by learning something Grants Programs: Major grants (up to $15,000), shockingly new about our family history. Visit www.michiganhumanities.org to register your classroom for the Great Michigan Read. Planning grants (up to $1,000) and Quick grants Classrooms are eligible for free teacher’s (up to $500) provide critical support to cultural guides, reader’s guides, and bookmarks. organizations in all corners of the state. Classrooms are also eligible for up to 30 free Visit www.michiganhumanities.org for more information GET CONNECTED copies of Annie’s Ghosts . & FOLLOW US! about the Council, and sign up for our print and/or digital mailings. For additional copies of this special newspaper Join the Michigan Humanities Council program guide, sign up with the Detroit Michigan Humanities Council Facebook group, or follow @mihumanities Newspapers in Education program on their 119 Pere Marquette Drive, Suite 3B (#greatMIread) on Twitter. website at www.nieonline.com/detroit . Lansing, MI 48912 michiganhumanities.org | 517.372.7770 MICHIGAN HUMANITIES COUNCIL | 3 Q&A WITH AUTHOR STEVE LUXENBERG t s o P n o t g n i h s a W e h T © . g r e b n e x u L e v e t Q&A S WITH STEVE LUXENBERG STEVE LUXENBERG How did you approach writing Steve Luxenberg, a Washington Post associate Annie’s Ghosts ? editor, has worked for 38 years as a newspaper I saw Annie’s Ghosts as a story about a search, editor and reporter. Post reporters working about putting myself in someone else’s place, with Steve have won two Pulitzer Prizes for about whether the truth can be found, and how to explanatory journalism. navigate the distortions that memory imposes on the truth. It seemed natural to write the story in the Steve grew up in Detroit, where Annie’s Ghosts first person, as part memoir and part history, primarily takes place. He attended Detroit public while separating my memories from those of the schools, including Henry Ford High School. people I found and interviewed. He and his wife, Mary Jo Kirschman, a former school librarian, live in Baltimore. They have As you got deeper in your research, what two adult children. was the biggest surprise you encountered? I never thought I’d find so many secrets, with so Annie’s Ghosts was a Washington Post Best Book many levels and implications—and not just in my of 2009 and a Michigan Notable Book in 2010. own family. In retrospect, I’m not sure why I wasn’t Following the publication of Annie’s Ghosts , prepared for that. I suppose it seems obvious that Steve was invited to give the 10th annual Horace one secret begets other secrets. W. Davenport Lecture in the Medical Humanities, sponsored by the University of Michigan’s Center The difficulty of getting Annie’s records also was a for the History of Medicine. surprise. I had no idea that a family member would have such trouble seeking information about someone long dead. I think we need to revisit our I never thought I’d find so many privacy laws, and make sure that they don’t prevent us from telling our own history or, most important, secrets, with so many levels and learning about past medical issues that could af - implications—and not just in my fect future generations in the family. own family. In retrospect, I’m What is the story’s most compelling lesson ANNIE’S GHOSTS not sure why I wasn’t prepared for today? Two sisters, born two years apart to immigrant parents, The power of secrecy cannot be underestimated. grow up in Depression-era Detroit. One—Beth, my mother— escapes eight years of low-paying jobs and her family’s for that. I suppose it seems For many families, secrets can be a destructive force. walk-up apartment by marrying and moving away from They can affect generations long after the secret is obvious that one secret the neighborhood that she equates with broken promises created. I don’t want anyone to believe that we need and broken lives. begets other secrets. to live our lives like open books, but if a secret is The other sister? She was my mother’s secret. harming the secret keeper, if carrying that secret is causing the secret keeper pain, then my rule of Annie’s Ghosts is their story, as best as I could unearth it. thumb is to release the secret. My mother would -Steve Luxenberg have been a much happier person if she had released her secret. 4 | GREAT MICHIGAN READ FAMILY SECRETS AND PERSONAL IDENTITIES . y l i m a Family secrets take many forms and are f g r e b n discovered in various ways – through a slip e x u L y s e in conversation, by a family member doing t r u o C . 2 genealogical research, through a treasure e g a t a , a trove of old letters, or even through h s r a M d social media. n a m o M FAMILY SECRETS & PERSONAL IDENTITIES Family secrets take many forms and are discovered LETTER TO STEVE’S MOM in various ways – through a slip in conversation, “Darling precious angel, by a family member doing genealogical research, I’m ashamed to say this darling. I’m not making a very through a treasure trove of old letters, or even good soldier. It’s getting me down dear and I’m going to through social media.