{"id":458,"date":"2019-06-11T10:00:48","date_gmt":"2019-06-11T10:00:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/wordpress.lvc.edu\/wordpress\/greenblotter\/?p=458"},"modified":"2019-06-11T10:00:48","modified_gmt":"2019-06-11T10:00:48","slug":"review-of-erica-trabolds-five-plots","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wordpress.lvc.edu\/greenblotter\/2019\/06\/11\/review-of-erica-trabolds-five-plots\/","title":{"rendered":"Review of Erica Trabold’s Five Plots"},"content":{"rendered":"
Review by Rachael Speck<\/h5>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Nonfiction | Essays. 120 pages. Seneca Review Books: Geneva, New York, 2018. Paperback $15.99. Available Here<\/a><\/p>\n

Erica Trabold\u2019s collection of lyric essays, Five Plots<\/em>, published by Seneca Review Books, charts Trabold\u2019s life through the landscapes of her childhood and how she relates to them as an adult. Each of the five essays comprising the collection relate to life in Nebraska, where Trabold spent her childhood. Drawing on the landscapes around her, Trabold contends with how life changes and shifts over time, in the same way that the landscapes around her have changed.<\/span><\/p>\n

The essay \u201cCanyoneering\u201d begins Trabold\u2019s dive into her past. Utilizing caverns and caves carved out by water, she shows the changes in her life and interrogates the idea of belonging. Trabold attempts to track her family history by reading \u201cfragments, our family history in documents created by relatives long dead.\u201d She delves into the history she shares, not only with her family, but with the land itself, the \u201cten thousand ghosts [that] created the sand beneath your feet.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

The following essays track Trabold\u2019s childhood\u2014the manmade lake that anchors her grandmother\u2019s cabin, the prairies she explored as a child and finds herself returning to as an adult\u2014every memory rooted in place, in landscape. Even returning home as an adult results in a hunting trip with a friend, leading to considerations of how her hometown continues to affect her even after she moves on. The collection finishes with the five burial plots purchased by her father, the return to the earth after death, the same earth she knew as a child. \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

In this collection, Trabold finds beauty in the world around her. In her eyes, rocks become \u201cblood and salmon flesh,\u201d rivers course \u201clike blood from an open wound,\u201d and manmade lakes are erased as \u201cwater pulls itself in and out, erasing the slope, the boundaries once determined by shovels and machines.\u201d \u00a0Trabold\u2019s observations of the land around her are vivid and unique, leading to introspective moments about what it means to live in a place and how that place helps shape a person. Even after leaving home, she realizes how Nebraska still has a hold on her, as she explains that \u201cI knew my hometown was affecting me in ways I couldn\u2019t control. We might talk about it in a few years, how home, for me, had always been a complication, wrapped in happiness and hurt.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Trabold braids her childhood with the history of the land and the history of her family. She does not, however, speak of her childhood with nostalgic longing. She regards it honestly, admitting \u201cI don\u2019t find it difficult to believe in my own cruelty\u201d as she looks back on the person she was growing up. And it is this honesty and rawness combined with Trabold\u2019s unique perspective and observations that make this collection powerful. Even simple memories\u2014finding broken plates in the mud as a child\u2014lead to introspective moments about life and death.<\/span><\/p>\n

Though only comprised of five essays, Five Plots <\/em>carries enormous weight, navigating the breadth of life and what it means to be in the world, shaped by the land and the people around us. Trabold\u2019s essays in Five Plots <\/em>compel us to consider our own histories, our own landscapes, and how we find ourselves in the middle of these.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Review by Rachael Speck Nonfiction | Essays. 120 pages. Seneca Review Books: Geneva, New York, 2018. Paperback $15.99. Available Here Erica Trabold\u2019s collection of lyric essays, Five Plots, published by […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-458","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","clearfix"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.lvc.edu\/greenblotter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/458","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.lvc.edu\/greenblotter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.lvc.edu\/greenblotter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.lvc.edu\/greenblotter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.lvc.edu\/greenblotter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=458"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.lvc.edu\/greenblotter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/458\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.lvc.edu\/greenblotter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=458"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.lvc.edu\/greenblotter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=458"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.lvc.edu\/greenblotter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=458"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}