Dreadful Sorry: Essays on an American Nostalgia

By: Jennifer Niesslein

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Synopsis: Candid essays on personal and cultural American nostalgia, focusing on the author&’s working-class, Rust Belt family history. What does it mean to be nostalgic for the American past? The feeling has been co-opted by the far right (&“Make America Great Again,&” after all, is a plea for the past), and associated with violent periods of our country&’s history when white supremacy was even more dominant than today. Can a liberal white woman still be sentimental about her childhood, her European immigrant family history, her working-class upbringing? In Dreadful Sorry, Jennifer Niesslein explores her &“nostalgia problem&” with grace and curiosity. The essays recount her thoughts upon rewatching Little Women with her sisters and mother, her hand-to-mouth childhood, the effect being &“not the right kind of white&” had on her Polish immigrant ancestors in the U.S, and her family&’s own racism. Niesslein weaves together personal and structural questions of class, whiteness, history, and family with humor and charisma. A book for anyone who wants to think about their relationship to their childhood, family history, and place.