#maud newton
7. What’s your current obsession?
I’m writing a book about the science and superstition of ancestry. It’s a blend of memoir, reportage, anecdote, history, science, philosophy, cultural criticism, and ghost stories, I hope an open-hearted blend. I’ve been drawn lately to histories of spiritual beliefs about ancestors that predate Christianity. I didn’t realize that ancestor veneration was prevalent even in Western Europe before the saints became seen as spiritual ancestors, supplanting the ancestors of the body.
As someone with a complicated family structure—my stepdaughter is one of the most important people in my life, and my amazing niece and nephews are not biologically related to me, and I also have a stepfather and a stepsister, and twin half-siblings I’ve never met—and a complicated relationship with some of my family members, I’m not fetishizing the biological family. I’m wary of our cultural fixation on looking to our genes to understand ourselves. At the same time, the influence of our genes, our ancestors, on the people we are is undeniable. All we have to do is look in the mirror to see that. Most days right now I’m thinking about these kinds of things.
Thanks to Narrative Magazine for asking me to answer the Narrative 10.