They Left Us Everything: A Memoir

After nearly two decades of caring for her elderly parents, Plum Johnson and her three younger brothers face conflicted feelings of grief and relief as they prepare to empty and sell their family home. The twenty-three-room house is filled with history, antiques, and the accumulated objects of their parents' lives. As Johnson undertakes this task, childhood items trigger difficult memories of her eccentric family during the 1950s and '60s. The process of sorting through the house proves both harder and more rewarding than anticipated. Through discovering new facts about her parents, Johnson gains a more accepting perspective on their relationships and comes to better understand who they were and what they valued.