Half in Shade

A treasure trove of lost family photos illuminates a singular perspective on family, memory, and history.

When Judith Kitchen inherited boxes of family photographs and scrapbooks, they sparked curiosity and speculation. Piecing together her memories with the physical evidence in the photos, along with a sense of history and a willingness to speculate, Kitchen explores the gray areas between the present and the past, family and self, certainty and uncertainty. The result is a lyrical, ennobling anatomy of a heritage, family, mother-daughter relationships, and the recovery from an illness that captures with precision the forces of the heart and mind when “none of us knows what lies beyond the moment, outside the frame.”

Publication date: April 3, 2012

Format: Trade Paper

Dimensions: 5.5 x 8.25

Page count: 214 pages

ISBN: 9781566892964

Judith Kitchen is the award-winning author and editor of several works of fiction, poetry, and nonfiction, including Half in Shade: Family, Photography, and Fate. Her work has won the Lillian Fairchild Award, two Pushcart Prizes, and the S. Mariella Gable Award. She has served as judge for the AWP Nonfiction Award, the Pushcart Prize in poetry, the Oregon Book Award, and the Bush Foundation fellowships, among others. The recipient of a National Endowment for the Arts fellowship, Kitchen lives in Port Townsend, Washington, and serves on the faculty and as codirector of the Rainier Writing Workshop at Pacific Lutheran University.

“Kitchen’s collaboration with the past serves as a reminder that we of the twenty-first century are neither the first nor the last to know heartbreak. Rather, we are simply one more snapshot in the collage of humanity—half-blurry proof that none of us are ever truly forgotten.” 

—Los Angeles Review

“Behind the beautiful language Kitchen employs and the poignant moments she unearths, it’s the theme of life’s instability that resonates most.” 

—The Brooklyn Rail

“Half in Shade is well worth the read. Together with the photographs, it offers an entertaining, quirky, and sometimes profound trip down memory lane—even if the lane is not your own.” 

—TriQuarterly Review

“Most compelling is [Kitchen's] attempt to find out the things she does not know but suspects about her mother, including an unexpected romance.”

—BookSlut

“Half in Shade: Family, Photography, and Fate, takes an intensive look at the intent behind 20th-century photography in general, with specific reflections on what any photo can tell us. . . . It can leave even the least nostalgic of readers wishing they had paid more attention.” 

—The Quivering Pen

“Half in Shade glows with a kind of inspirational energy that will make this book eminently teachable.” 

—Water~Stone Review

“Half in Shade is one of those rare, hypnotically enjoyable books that can be stretched out over many long, lazy afternoons or read in one sitting.” 

—ForeWord Reviews

“Kitchen’s ruminations linger long after Half in Shade is finished, leaving readers to question how much we really know about the people who become our parents.” 

—Shelf Awareness

“Part memoir, part speculation, part essay, a demonstration of the interactive art of seeing, and finally for me, a beautifully sustained meditation. It is at that meditative level that the book’s potent, unsentimental emotive power gathers.” 

—Stuart Dybek