SOURCE: "Putting a Life in Order," in Christian Century, May 21-28, 1997, pp. 519-23.

[Below, Bush discusses the current state of memoir-writing and reviews three works: Agate Nesaule's A Woman in Amber and Frank McCourt's Angela's Ashes, which she describes as "two of the best of the recent memoirs," and Kathryn Harrison's The Kiss, which she considers "one of the worst."]

My mother is our family's storyteller, and an eventful life has given her great material. Born in the U.S. to immigrant parents who couldn't decide whether they preferred to live in America or Europe, she divided her childhood between Batschka Jarak, a small ethnic German village in what was then Yugoslavia, and Cleveland, Ohio. The frequent moves between continents and vastly different cultures disrupted her schooling and friendships and sometimes left her wondering who she was. Shortly before the outbreak of World War II, she married one...