Issue link: http://tcnj.uberflip.com/i/1515745
10 The College of New Jersey Magazine P R A I R I E E S S A Y Lauded by The New York Times book review, as "[An] anguished, affecting memoir," Cassandra Jackson's The Wreck: A Daughter's Memoir of Becoming a Mother is a portrait of two parallel stories. In one, she grapples with finding her place in her family's oft-unspoken past as she searches for answers about a car accident that devastated her father's family before she was born. In the other, she navi- gates her own challenges and emotions as a Black woman wanting to be a mother but experiencing infertility. The Wreck was included at the top of a New York Times book review shortlist and featured on NPR's Weekend Edition Sunday. In October, Jackson shared passages with the campus community at a reading in Mayo Concert Hall. Here, we excerpt two illustrative moments of the book. The first is a flashback from Jackson's childhood in Alabama, recounting the moment she first realizes that there is much she doesn't know about her father's past and the people in her own extended family. In the second excerpt, Jackson describes her feel- ings about a more recent experience where evidence of her infertility is on full display in the supermarket. — Emily W. Dodd '03 Back and forth Cassandra Jackson searches for the truth about her family's past while steadfastly charting its future. Cassandra Jackson