Auction Ends: Feb 18, 2012 04:00 PM PST

Books, Music & Video

Objects of Our Affection: Uncovering My Family's Past, One Chair, Pistol, and Pickle Fork at a Time

Item Number: NVPR-1715

Estimated Value: 25 USD
Sold: 7 USD to DandRLV

Number of Bids: 1 - Bid History

Item Description

[Hardcover] By: Lisa Tracy -- After their mothers death, Lisa Tracy and her sister, Jeanne, are left to contend with several households worth of furniture and memorabilia, much of it accumulated during their familys many decades of military service in far-flung outposts from the American frontier to the World War Twoera Pacific. In this engaging and deeply moving book, Tracy chronicles the wondrous interior life of those possessions and discovers that the roots of our passion for acquisition often lie not in shallow materialism but in our desire to possess the most treasured commodity of all: a connection to the past. What starts as an exercise in information gathering designed to boost the estates resale value at auction evolves into a quest that takes Lisa Tracy from her New Jersey home to the Philippines and, ultimately, back to the town where she grew up. These travels open her eyes to a rich family history characterized by duty, hardship, honor, and devotionqualities embodied in the very items she intends to sell. Here is an inventory unlike any other: silver gewgaws, dueling pistols that once belonged to Aaron Burr (no, not those pistols), a stately storage chest from Boxer Rebellionera China, providentially recovered family documents, even a chair in which George Washington may or may not have sateach piece cherished and passed down to Lisas generation as an emblem of who her forebears were, what they had done, and where they had been. Each is cataloged here with all the richness and intimacy that only a family member could bring to the endeavor. Even as we know we should be winnowing, were wallowing, observes Lisa Tracy in one of her characteristically trenchant observations about Americas abiding obsession with stuff. A paean to the pack rat in us all, Objects of Our Affection offers an offbeat and intriguing mix of cultural anthropology, Antiques Roadshow Americana, and military history and lore, as well as a thoughtful meditation on the emotional resonance of objectswhat they mean and the oh-so-fascinating stories they tell.