Part memoir, part loving tribute, “When Women Were Birds” is Terry Tempest Williams’ exploration of her mother’s legacy, and its influence on her own beliefs and values.
The book begins with a conversation between the two that took place a week before the death of her mother, the matriarch of a large Mormon clan in northern Utah.
This exchange includes a revelation — and an odd request: “I am leaving you all my journals, but you must promise me you won’t look at them until after I’m gone.”
It was a shock to Williams to discover that her mother had kept journals. But an even bigger surprise comes when she finds out what the three shelves of personal records contain.
When Williams pulls out the journals, she finds the pages of the first blank. The second and third journals are also empty.
She soon discovers all of the journals were left entirely blank.
The question is: What does this haunting gesture mean? What was her mother trying to say? Does silence have a voice?
Williams details her own memories of her mother, while pondering the meaning of the blank pages. The result is a memoir filled with words that were never spoken, sentences that were never communicated, and narratives that were never shared.
The book opens with a poetic description of her mother’s final days.
“It was January, and the ruthless clamp of cold down on us outside. Yet inside, Mother’s tenderness and clarity of mind carried its own warmth. She was dying in the same way she was living, consciously,” the first page reads.
The author also reflects on her own faith, and contemplates the notion of absence and presence.
This is not the first time that Williams has written about her mother. In an earlier memoir, “Refuge,” she suggests that the Mormon matriarch may have developed cancer as a result of nuclear testing nearby.
