Moments of Glad Grace: A Memoir

Wearing (Confessions of a Fairy’s Daughter) recounts the events and emotions of the week she spent in Dublin assisting her aging and ailing father with genealogical research, though she had little interest in her family’s history (and rather dreaded the idea that her father’s research would reveal the family was descended from oppressors or racists). As Wearing’s father combs through archives, library books, and municipal records, Wearing performs different kinds of studies: determining how to come to terms with her father’s physical decline as well as his passion for genealogical research, which conflicted with her own preference for “immersion” in the stories and cultures of a place or time. Peppered with moments of humor—when informing customs of the nature of their trip to Ireland, Wearing confuses the terms genealogy and gynecology—this account of a week spent determining a family’s history delivers lessons for learning more about living family members as well.