Rachel Louise Snyder and 'Women We Buried, Women We Burned'

There is never a right time to lose a parent. But losing a parent at a young age can mean a lifetime of searching for ways to fill a hole that never gets smaller. 

In her memoir, “Women We Buried, Women We Burned,” writer and journalist Rachel Louise Snyder observes the rupturing of her life following the death of her mother when she was 8. 

She begins to fill this hole with rage. She’s a victim and perpetrator of violence in her evangelical Christian home. She flunks out of high school and experiences homelessness. 

In Snyder’s odyssey from a troubled teen in a Chicago suburb to a reporter covering violence and genocide around the world, she seeks, she loses, but she also finds. 

At the heart of the book is a set of questions: How do we survive the losses that have made us who we are? How do we not necessarily fill the holes created by loss, but live around them? 

We speak to her about these questions and her new memoir.

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