Megan Marshall’s memoir explores personal and historical narratives

Biographer Megan Marshall blends personal history with broader cultural themes in her latest collection of essays.

Illustration by Stella Levi

By Hayu Andini and Sarah Oktaviany

After Lives: A Poignant Memoir Collection That Examines Biographies as a Genre, Perfect for Winter 2025, Reflect on Life's Lessons Through Compelling Stories, by Megan Marshall

Buy on Amazon

Ralph Waldo Emerson once remarked that “all biography is autobiography,” suggesting that the act of writing about another’s life inevitably reveals something about the author. Biographers often exist in the margins, acting as observers rather than subjects. However, when they step into the foreground, it is usually because their personal narratives intersect meaningfully with their research.

Megan Marshall, a highly regarded biographer known for her works on Margaret Fuller and the Peabody sisters, takes a more personal approach in her latest collection of essays. After previously weaving her own experiences into a biography of poet Elizabeth Bishop—with mixed critical reception—she now offers a deeply reflective exploration of memory, identity, and the process of documenting lives.

A collection of personal and historical intersections

Marshall’s essays cover a range of topics, from her grandfather’s work with the Red Cross in post-World War I France to the significance of left-handedness in her family. One particularly vivid essay recounts a trip to Kyoto during typhoon season. While the collection lacks a unifying thematic storm, it instead presents a series of compelling gusts—fragments of history and personal memory woven together with thoughtfulness.

Among the standout essays is Free for a While, which revisits the 1970 death of Jonathan Jackson, a 17-year-old who attempted to take courtroom hostages in an effort to free his imprisoned brother, George Jackson, the author of Soledad Brother. The incident ended in a violent shootout, making national headlines. What makes the story particularly poignant for Marshall is her personal connection—Jonathan Jackson was her classmate at Blair High School in Pasadena, California.

Marshall recalls Jonathan’s performance as Pyramus in A Midsummer Night’s Dream just weeks before his death, reflecting on how his laughter-filled stage presence sharply contrasted with his later fate. Her recollection of that moment and the chilling significance of the essay’s title leaves readers with a sense of lost potential and historical weight.

Memory through objects

Another evocative essay, These Useless Things, contemplates the meaning behind an ordinary household item—a wood-handled ice pick that once belonged to Marshall’s late father. The object, seemingly insignificant, becomes a symbol of family history. She associates it with childhood memories of homemade vanilla ice cream and her father’s physics lessons. Yet the ice pick also holds a deeper resonance: its sharp point, now blunted with a wine cork, mirrors the hidden struggles within her father’s life.

Marshall’s father, once a promising student, battled mental illness and alcoholism, leading to periods of financial hardship for their family. Her mother’s artistic aspirations were also curtailed, as practical concerns took precedence. Marshall reflects on how these experiences shaped her own perspective, drawing her toward stories of unrealized potential and lives shaped by compromise—often a defining theme in women’s narratives.

The material turn in biography

Marshall also explores how the field of history has shifted away from relying solely on written documents and toward examining physical artifacts. This “material turn” aims to reconstruct the lives of those who left little to no written records. She personally experiences this shift when she acquires an early 19th-century Honduran mahogany writing box, once used by Elizabeth and Mary Peabody. The physical presence of the artifact deepens her connection to the historical figures she has studied, adding a tangible dimension to their stories.

This exploration raises broader questions: What physical objects will future historians use to understand our era? Marshall humorously ponders whether scholars will one day analyze our well-worn laptops, complete with broken keys and accumulated crumbs, as relics of our storytelling practices.

The unfinished nature of biography

Just as a home is never truly finished, Marshall suggests that the act of writing biography remains an ongoing process. Loose ends and unanswered questions are inevitable. This idea is starkly illustrated in her account of peering into the coffin of Una Hawthorne, the daughter of Nathaniel Hawthorne and the inspiration for Pearl in The Scarlet Letter. According to legend, Una’s hair turned white from grief before her death. However, when Marshall examines her remains, she discovers that her hair is still a deep, rusty red.

This moment encapsulates the limits of historical certainty. “That was the lesson of looking inside the coffin,” Marshall writes. “There are a few things we can know for sure: a patch of cloth, a fragment of bone, a red braid. And then there are the questions we can’t answer.”

A memoir of introspection and discovery

Marshall’s latest work is not a traditional memoir but a meditation on memory, history, and the artifacts that link personal and collective narratives. By blending biography with autobiography, she demonstrates how the lives of others shape our understanding of ourselves.

While the collection may not have the cohesion of a single narrative arc, its individual essays offer thoughtful reflections on the nature of storytelling. Marshall’s ability to connect the personal with the historical makes for an engaging and deeply introspective read.

Explore more in Books

The acclaimed novelist chronicles his struggles and recovery after a life-changing accident.
Bill Gates shares how luck, ambition, and coding obsession shaped Microsoft’s rise.
Colette Shade’s Y2K memoir captures the millennial experience of identity, hope, and disillusionment through a series of personal essays.