"In Kephart’s skilled hands, an everyday item made of plant fibers becomes a repository not just for personal history, but also ‘varnished intimacies.’ The poignant irony...is that while paper serves as an instrument for history, it is as ephemeral as the lives it documents.... As she offers insight into the fascinating world of papermaking, Kephart also reveals the intimate connection between memory and its most ubiquitous—and also most fragile—receptacle. An eloquent and unique memoir.”—Kirkus Reviews
"The history of paper making and the many ways we use paper provide a framework for Kephart’s profound meditation on creativity, memories, connections, and culture…. Kephart weaves in fascinating history about the women behind various inventions and such innovations as the paper bag and dressmaking patterns; she also shares moments of deeply felt personal connections with her family and friends. The beauty of her carefully crafted sentences is striking, but this is not about the solitary practice of writing…. Kephart invites reflection and engagement in her celebration of the many dimensions of the paper world and how reading and writing form an intersection for sharing the parts that make up the sum of each of us."—Booklist
"What begins as a tribute to Dard Hunter, master craftsman of handmade paper, gradually becomes a heartbreaking and highly original memoir of [Kephart's] own, told in scrapbooks, recipes, photographs, sheet music, sewing patterns, and other physical records found while going through her mother’s estate.”—Washington Independent Review of Books