• Thinking - writing

    Memoir and Morality

    Last night I was reading Tara Bray Smith’s memoir, West of Then, when I came across a familiar name in the text. It’s an unusual name, and I looked at it, and thought I wonder if that’s who I think it is? The age would be about right, and my friend also grew up in Hawaii in, shall we say, a sort of hippie household. So I called her up, and she said that yes, it was her, and that the whole thing has been really difficult for her. Smith used not only her first name in the book, but…