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Published Feb 2015
272 pages
Genre: Biography/Memoir
Publication Information
Alan Lightman's grandfather M.A. Lightman was the family's undisputed patriarch: it was his movie theater empire that catapulted the family to prominence in the South; his fearless success that both galvanized and paralyzed his descendants, haunting them for a half century after his death.
In this lyrical and impressionistic memoir, Lightman writes about returning to Memphis in an attempt to understand the people he so eagerly left behind forty years earlier. As aging uncles and aunts begin telling family stories, Lightman rediscovers his southern roots and slowly realizes the errors in his perceptions of his grandfather and of his own father, who had been crushed by M.A.
Here is a family saga set against a throbbing century of Memphis - the rhythm and blues, the barbecue and pecan pie, and the segregated society - that includes personal encounters with Elvis, Martin Luther King, Jr., and E. H. "Boss" Crump. At the heart of it all is a family haunted by the ghost of the domineering M.A., and the struggle of the author to understand his conflicted loyalties to his father and grandfather.
"Starred Review. The author shows us many small moments, igniting each with sparks of passion, memory and intelligence." - Kirkus
"Starred Review. Lightman's utterly transfixing screening of soulful and funny family memories projects a quintessentially American tale." - Booklist
"Screwball, electric, heartfelt, and true, Screening Room pulls no punches. This is Lightman in a new guise, and yet never more himself as he resurrects with aching care the time, place and people that gave him life. I was stirred and moved." - Gish Jen, author of World and Town
This information about Screening Room was first featured
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Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Alan Lightman - trained as a theoretical physicist - is the author of six novels, including the international best seller Einstein's Dreams, as well as The Diagnosis, a finalist for the National Book Award. He is also the author of three collections of essays and several books on science. His work has appeared in The Atlantic, Granta, Harper's Magazine, The New Yorker, The New York Review of Books, and Nature, among other publications. He has taught at Harvard and at MIT, where he was the first person to receive a dual faculty appointment in science and the humanities. He lives in the Boston area.
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