Imprint: A Memoir of Trauma in the Third Generation is a profound and courageous exploration of trauma, family, and the importance of breaking silence and telling stories. When her son almost died at birth and her grandmother passed away, Claire’s body, which had always felt weighed down by unknown hurt, suddenly suffered from chronic health conditions. Her grief was so large it seemed to encompass more than her own lifetime, and she became determined to find out why.

Sicherman grew up reading Anne Frank and watching Schindler’s List with almost no knowledge of the Holocaust’s impact on her family. Now a mother herself, Sicherman uses vignettes, epistolary style, and other unconventional forms to explore the intergenerational transmission of trauma, about the fact that genes can be altered and carry memories, which are then passed down—a genetic imprinting. A testimony of the connections between mind and body, the past and the present, Imprint is devastatingly beautiful—ultimately a story of love and survival.

Claire Sicherman is a graduate of The Humber School for Writers and Langara College. She is a facilitator in a multi-generational writing group called Home Words Project and is the author of Imprint: A Memoir of Trauma in the Third Generation.