A Field Guide to Getting Lost

This chapter centers on Solnit’s immigrant ancestors and their stories—especially her grandmother and great-grandmother—and on what can and can’t be recovered of their stories. Much of Solnit’s ancestral history is lost: “Things in my family have a way of disappearing” (43). She recalls sitting with her aunt, looking through a box of old family photographs. In one picture, Solnit’s grandmother and her two siblings are standing together at Ellis Island. Their heads are shaved, and the three children share the same hollow expression. When Solnit mentioned the box of photographs to her aunt later, she was told the box never existed. Another time, Solnit learned that the box was lost.

Solnit explains that the lost photographs symbolize the fragmented history of her family. Her grandparents emigrated from Bialystok during World War II. Solnit’s father and family members rarely spoke of the past, as though by never mentioning it, they could leave it behind. The story of her ancestors’ emigration came to Solnit over the years in fragments, each piece challenging the one before it. Solnit’s great-grandfather traveled to Los Angelas with his three children, leaving his wife behind.

In one story, Solnit’s great-grandmother made it to Los Angelas, only to discover that her husband had married an American woman who was now raising their children as her own.