Fiction alum Melora Wolff '87 has released her latest collection, Bequeath, a book of essays out now from LSU Press.
Weaving in elements of memoir, the book is an exploration of the bequeathed, from the intimate to the unknown, a family fable and a coming of age story set in 1970s New York City. Told in ten essays, Bequeath reveals a culture gone by, and the things we take with us.
“Melora Wolff’s memoir in essays brings thrillingly to life the vanished New York of her childhood,” praised fellow author Claire Messud, “from a girl’s early experience of joy to a city’s rampant paranoia and the eager futurism of Lost in Space.”
Author David L. Ulin also championed the work, adding “Wolff reminds us of all we know and all we never know, the insufficiency of memory and also its necessity.”
“I felt very fortunate to be at home in a place I found strange and beautiful,” recalled Wolff. Her process in revisiting 1970s New York required reconciling memories of a city both empowering and dangerous, “the rush of feminist strength and unity rose during years in which women were preyed upon,” she added. “Neighborhoods were, simultaneously, corridors of elegance and ominous shadows. All possible fates were mapped onto the grid.”
In many ways, the period remains the definitive portrait of the city for Wolff, having left in 1990 following the completion of her MFA at Columbia. “The canvas of New York in the 1970s is brighter to me than the one I see shrouding it now in 2025.”
The collection began as a series of independent essays, and only later did the pieces begin to feel like parts of a whole. “When you write a lot of personal essays over several years, a certain pattern inevitably manifests,” said Wolff, “you start to see more clearly what the central or haunting subject of the writing actually is.”
These discoveries led Wolff to immediately begin work on the final two essays of the collection, including the titular piece, ‘Bequeath,’ a reckoning with the fallout from her father’s death. A round of rewrites later, and she knew the work was done, “I felt that one ongoing story about my family and the past was finally completed.”
Wolff’s writing has also appeared in publications including Brick, The New York Times, Speculative Nonfiction, Best American Fantasy, and The Southern Review. She is Associate Professor and Director of Creative Writing at Skidmore College.
