History of My Breath
by Kristin Kovacic
Red Mountain Press, $24.9

In his introduction to “The Art of the Personal Essay,” a doorstop anthology published in 1994, the editor Phillip Lopate writes, “The hallmark of the personal essay is its intimacy.

The writer seems to be speaking directly into your ear, confiding everything from gossip to wisdom. Through sharing thoughts, memories, desires, complaints, and whimsies, the personal essayist sets up a relationship with the reader, a dialogue — a friendship, if you will, based on identification, understanding, testiness, and companionship.”

Lopate goes on to propose that, “(a)t the core of the personal essay is the supposition that there is a certain unity to human experience.”

A cursory glance at virtually any comments section online offers a vigorous rebuttal, but the atomization of society and the personal curating of one’s information were things that Lopate did not see coming in that long ago age. And yet, the memoir and personal essay continue to thrive.

As I write this, the top three bestselling non-fiction books in the country (“Educated” by Tara Westover, “Three Women” by Lisa Taddeo, and “Becoming” by Michelle Obama) easily fall into this category. It’s a comfort to know that even as politics pull us apart, we still want to hear one another’s stories. We still want to connect to each other.

Poet and essayist Kristin Kovacic’s History of My Breath is a luminous study in shared intimacy. These essays ranging in topic from childhood to childbirth, parenting to care giving, busing to active shooter drills in schools take in the full scope of Kovacic’s life.

It’s a journey that begins with her childhood in Carrick and many years later finds her celebrating a birthday in a small cafe in the French town of Carcassonne.

The longest essay here, “Interrupted Journey,” details the events surrounding the school desegregation order that came down from the Pennsylvania Human Relations Commission in 1971 (see p. 42) which led to the busing of Carrick students to Knoxville Junior High School. Parents protested, removed their children from school, and a legal battle ensued.

Kovacic weaves the historical record (documents and studies are vigorously quoted) together with her memories of a grade school teacher’s UFO obsession, the Pittsburgh Pirates 1971 World Series victory, and the other-worldliness of the homes of childhood friends. It’s a masterclass in the wide emotional and factual breadth a personal essay can convey.

Her book makes clear that “(t)his kind of literary work, of facing the complications of life as it is coming at us, of risking our high opinions of ourselves and meaning what we say,” can be necessary and enriching to a wide readership.

And what is won from this endeavor? Kovacic offers us this, “And so we have arrived at imperfect love, love that is staring, comparing, holding back but hanging in.” Our love for one another, much like our understanding, may be imperfect, but nonetheless it is love, and with that as our shared touchstone maybe Lopate’s “unity to human experience” is not so naïve an idea after all.

DUE DATE

Oct. 10-12 The Three Rivers Children’s Book Festival turns Oakmont into a mecca for young readers with three days of events and activities with work from more than 80 authors. Special guests include Laura Numeroff, author of the bestselling “If You Give a Mouse a Cookie”; the “Dear Dumb Diary” series writer Jim Benton; and cartoonist and creator of the syndicated comic strip, “The Pajama Diaries,” Terri Libenson. Info: 412/915-0619, trcbookfest.org