When Julia Ridley Smith's parents died, they left behind a virtual
museum of furniture, books, art, and artifacts. Between the contents of
their home, the stock from their North Carolina antiques shop, and the
ephemera of two lives lived, Smith faced a monumental task. What would
she do with her parents' possessions?
Smith's wise and moving memoir in essays, The Sum of Trifles, peels back
the layers of meaning surrounding specific objects her parents owned,
from an eighteenth-century miniature to her father's prosthetics. A
vintage hi-fi provides a view of her often tense relationship with her
father, whose love of jazz kindled her own artistic impulse. A Japanese
screen embodies her mother's principles of good taste and good manners,
while an antebellum quilt prompts Smith to grapple with her family's
slaveholding legacy. Along the way, she turns to literature that
illuminates how her inheritance shaped her notions of identity and
purpose.
The Sum of Trifles offers up dark humor and raw feeling, mixed with an
erudite streak. It's a curious, thoughtful look at how we live in and
with our material culture and how we face our losses as we decide what
to keep and what to let go.