Memories remade in Jonathan Gil Harris’ ‘The Girl from Fergana – Secrets of My Mother’s Chinese Tea Chest’

The worst secret is an open one. Jonathan Gil Harris invokes Edgar Allan Poe’s short story, ‘Purloined Letter’, where what was stolen was hidden in plain sight. For years, a large Chinese tea chest dominated their spare living room in New Zealand. His mother Stella forbade him from opening it. This chest, stuffed with envelopes and shoe boxes smelling of naphthalene, is what he uses to piece together her story. ‘The Girl from Fergana — Secrets of My Mother’s Chinese Tea Chest’ is a memoir that is tender, evocative and poignant. Stella left home in Warsaw to escape Nazi-occupied Poland,…