Kathleen Bednarek

In Bequeath, Melora Wolff holds a mirror up to a lifetime, delving into layered experiences through well-crafted essays marked by keen perceptions. Bequeath draws from a myriad of interesting source material—a wealthy New York City upbringing complete with private school escapades for one—and the knack with which Wolff transforms personal narrative into universal insights through her clear, distinctive voice.

While reading Bequeath, I was also struck by what might be called Wolff's "set and setting"—how each essay's singular, dynamic environment brings forth new elements of her perspective, which propelled my attention forward throughout the collection. Wolff writes with care and craft, whether drawing from childhood memories or reflecting on experiences as an older adult, and her focus shifts meaningfully with each context.

In "The Poison Hour," we encounter Wolff as a child navigating fascination and fear in an atmosphere charged with B-horror movies, widespread pesticide use, a distant mother, and a jazz musician father who drifts in and out of the night: "The Poison Hours were long, quiet, empty of my father, and dank with boredom. My mother liked to read crime novels in a white leather lounge chair on the sundeck after the sun went down and the toxins had settled."

This same observational acuity appears in "Masters in This Hall," where Wolff shares poignant adolescent memories from her prestigious private school, attending alongside children of notable figures like Leonard Bernstein and John F. Kennedy. The essay captures a wide range of awkward moments and her perception of fathers as individuals—their moods, eccentricities, habits, and pain. Even in youth, Wolff had absorbed so much of her environment that she speaks authentically in the language of her surroundings without artifice.

Characters weave in and out of universal themes, adding depth while capturing the zeitgeist of each era. Wolff magnifies the strange and endearing eccentricities of those around her, yet her focus remains specific to each piece. The pack rat father mentioned in "Bequeath" is the same gigging saxophonist who gave young Wolff rollicking shoulder rides and clapped politely at a staged living room play in "Poison Hour"—and I came to feel that I knew these figures intimately, before encountering them anew in another essay's particular light.

"Mystery Girls" combines the danger and paranoia of Son of Sam-era New York with mythological references and sexual experiences surrounding the high school prom. In "Joy," an essay about memory, aging, and the search for meaning, Wolff explores an intense realization within a barn loft that serves as both literal memory and metaphor for authentic selfhood: "Now. This. Always."

Throughout Bequeath, Wolff employs writerly choices that enliven the essays and draw readers closer to the substance of her day-to-day life. Her deft shift to second person in "Bequeath" places readers at the piano she played as a child—the same piano she must extricate from her father's apartment after his death. These decisions illuminate and juxtapose both the tangible objects that persist after loss and the emotions that riveted my attention without becoming too indulgent or solipsistic.

One of the collection's most singular qualities is its circularity and cyclical perspective. In "The End," Wolff demonstrates that endings are never truly final—they are simply "movement masked as a conclusion." The collection's structure twines in the essay "Begin," where the writer finds herself in her mother's arms, entranced by a Peter Pan storybook.

In Bequeath, Wolff’s collection is accessible, yet ponders aspects of disconnection and the unfamiliar. Wolff clearly loves literature and can adapt the canon meaningfully to her own work. With Bequeath, readers are offered writing of meaningful depth, essays that express a life well-lived and contemplated for all its intricacies.