Review of Cassandra Lane’s We Are Bridges

by Melissa Greenwood

When a former writing mentor suggested I might enjoy Cassandra Lane’s book We Are Bridges—a memoir about ancestral trauma—I bristled. What could I possibly have in common with this story? Yet, (to borrow from the title), good writing acts as a bridge, connecting writer to reader, and Lane, who won a Louise Meriwether First Book Prize, is a master with her pen.

I was ashamed of my initial resistance when it turned out that Lane and I have a great deal in common: an ...