Rich Benjamin on Writing a Memoir Centering Events That Transpired Before You Were Born
From Memoir Nation by Brooke Warner and Grant Faulkner
April 13, 2026 · 40 min
About this episode
Rich Benjamin discusses writing about family history and intergenerational trauma in memoirs.
How do you get into a story that centers events you don’t remember because you weren’t alive to witness them? That’s what we’re covering today in an episode that reaches into considerations of intergenerational trauma, and how even what’s not said gets transmitted from one generation to the next. Author Rich Benjamin shares with us the story of his family’s tumultuous past in Haiti, and its impact on his grandfather, who never knew, and his mother, who chose silence over disclosure. Rich speaks about research, about how it can be easier to write “third-hand” about traumas you didn’t live through, and how doing the work to uncover stories like these can break the cycles of trauma. In this week’s book trend, we actually cover a positive AI trend—unheard of. Listen in for more. Rich Benjamin is an award-winning writer, cultural critic, and memoirist whose work investigates political, social, and economic power through deeply researched storytelling. Rich is the author of the memoir, Talk to Me: Lessons from a Family Forged by History , and Searching for Whitopia , a groundbreaking immersive study that presciently examined the rise of white anxiety and nationalism in the United…
People in this episode
Hosts: Brooke Warner, Grant Faulkner
Guest: Rich Benjamin
Topics covered
- memoir writing
- intergenerational trauma
- family history
- storytelling
- research in writing
- AI trends
Keywords
- memoir
- intergenerational trauma
- family history
- storytelling
- writing process
- AI trends
Mentioned in this episode
Organizations: The New Yorker, The New York Times, NPR, MSNBC, CNN
Books & works: Talk to Me: Lessons from a Family Forged by History, Searching for Whitopia
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