The Peril of Remembering Nice Things

Praise for Jeffrey Wade Gibbs

“A stunning meditation on family, trauma, and memory that hums with the feel of the South and doesn’t flinch in its portrayal of the terrors of the past that some would rather forget.” 
-Louise Callaghan, author of Father of Lions

“Beautiful, heart-wrenching, sometimes horrifying, and haunted from cover to cover.”
-Hugh Sheehy, author of The Invisibles

“The Peril of Remembering Nice Things is many books in one: a son’s memoir of his father, a self-exiled Southerner’s investigation of his homeland’s (and maybe his own family’s) history of murderous racism, a frank assessment of humanitarian progress in the United States and abroad, a loving collection of stories as likely to horrify and shock as they are to provoke a laugh, and an American emigre’s honest-to-God attempt to make sense of his own identity. Beautiful, heart-wrenching, sometimes horrifying, and haunted from cover to cover.”

-Hugh Sheehy, author of Design Flaw and The Invisibles

“Black Americans have been diving into their family histories for so long, knowing that their lives and their positions in society today are inextricably connected to the past. White people haven’t done much digging, scared of what they’ll find or persisting in comfortable denial about how history reverberates today. But denial isn’t comfortable, looking away isn’t comfortable, exactly because of the direct lines between then and now. Jeff Gibbs’ journey into his father’s life and death and the choices of generations before him, make that painfully clear. This book is not just brave and honest, it is also exceptionally well-written. Gibbs’ curiosity, his eye for detail, his skill to ask all the right questions and carefully pull threads to unravel the past, turn The Peril of Remembering Nice Things into an intriguing, disturbing, at times haunting experience.”
-Fréderike Geerdink, freelance journalist for the Independent, author of The Boys are Dead: The Roboski Massacre and the Kurdish Question in Turkey

“Jeffrey Gibbs combines investigative journalism with storytelling to reveal his father’s suicide and a region’s hidden history, exposing the lasting effects of historic crimes. He courageously delves into hidden histories, from the American South to Japan and Turkey, offering insightful literary documentation.”
-Jiyar Gol, BBC World Affairs Correspondent

“While searching for meaning in his father’s life and suicide, and tying both to a broader history encompassing the American South, Turkey, and Japan, Gibbs marches unflinchingly up to his subjects, yielding light and a way forward for himself and his readers. Beautifully written despite the horrors Gibbs explores, The Peril of Remembering Nice Things is a powerfully honest and important book about family, community, and race.”
-David Joiner, author of The Lotus Eaters, Kanazawa and The Heron Catchers