Perhaps the trick is to find a gentle use for memory. Learn to cup the small and glorious moments in our hands and treasure them, finding some solace this way. Otherwise all they do is...

I never stopped loving her,” he said. “I couldn’t let her go. Once the past gets you in its clutches, well, you’ve got to want to fight to be released. I never did. That was...

Once, when she was trying to explain why she’d returned to Hungary, Marika said, ‘Sometimes if you don’t go backwards, you can’t move forwards.’ I’d repeated this to my father, hoping he’d be able to...

My father spent a long time looking at The Book of Summers, turning each page with solemnity. I watched him, seeing it all again through his eyes. A world that he was never a part...