A long and troubling lineage

In My Blood: Six Generations of Madness and Desire in an American Family
By John Sedgwick
HarperCollins, 414 pp., illustrated, $25.95

Early in John Sedgwick's extraordinary memoir, "In My Blood," two themes begin to emerge, one that augurs a fascinating adventure, the other stunning the reader with its ostensible presumption. We learn that the author, known for several intriguing books and a slew of articles, has been dealing with the depression and hospitalization of his mother, as well as his own mood swings, and is about to go down the path of tracing his family back generations to find, if not the seeds of this mental despair, at least a more than provocative historical road map.

But now comes that statement veritably reeking with presumption: The story of the Sedgwicks, this brilliant writer avers, is the story of America, no less . And in great measure, it is . For "In My Blood" must be read not merely as an examination of one's ancestors , but also as a story of stories, as it were, of men and women . For each character, emerging often in his or her own words captured from diaries, logs, published articles and books, seems larger than life. People appear in these pages almost as embodiments of the centuries and environments in which they lived.

The family's story commences in the late 1700 s with the formidable Theodore Sedgwick, attorney, speaker of the US House of Representatives, judge of the Massachusetts Supreme Court, a Federalist, a friend of presidents, an emancipator of slaves, a designer of what might well have been the first Federalist house, which became the family's architectural and spiritual epicenter for centuries, and the apotheosis of pater familias. All things Sedgwick, it would appear, emanate from this illustrious gentleman. The house in Stockbridge stands today beside land where Sedgwicks of six generations lie buried.

If the story commences with Theodore, it begins as well with his wife, Pamela, who suffers what appears to author Sedgwick as the family's first known encounter with chronic depression. And thus it begins, the drama of a slew of Groton - and Harvard -educated men of prosperity and position, all of whom have experienced profound tragedy. It is a drama of people earning great wealth and losing it, of people involved in making deals, owning railroads that ultimately would connect America's two great coasts. It is the story of gorgeous young people living with a despair caused in part by chemical imbalance, and in part because the sheer unadulterated love they hoped would be part of their birthright never reached them .

Theodore and Pamela's daughter Cath arine became one of America's great writers . Ellery Sedgwick not only wrote for and edited The Atlantic; he eventually bought and ran it for years. Other Sedgwicks became or married prominent Harvard and MIT professors, journalists and writers, founders of colleges, and headmasters of elite schools. One of the author's cousins, barely in his 20s, died by his own hand. Soon after, the young man's brother would be killed in a motorcycle accident. Their sister, Edie, would become known as the luminous beauty in several Andy Warhol experimental films. Warhol, as it were, "made" Edie Sedgwick, but she too was a deeply troubled soul, bewitched by the Sedgwick illness. Ultimately she would drown in alcohol and drugs. And another Sedgwick, the gifted Kyra , was awarded a Golden Globe last month .

The Sedgwick story engages us with the powers and insights of a great novel. We acknowledge, perhaps begrudgingly, that it is the story of America, sort of. But then, in meeting the author's father, we realize, perhaps, what this book is truly about.

Minturn Sedgwick was, in robustness and presence, a colossal man. A more than able boxer, member of the Harvard football team that beat Oregon in the Rose Bowl , and creator of what investors know as index funds. A man whose first marriage had produced several children, Minturn married Emily, the author's mother and a champion tennis player. Minturn was the figure that in my mind lives most deeply in the author's soul if only because there was so much of him in life, and so little of him in his son's memory.

So, story of America or not, the Sedgwick saga gives way to yet another theme, that of the longing for a father who somehow cannot care as we would hope . It is the very theme that , if it doesn't go back to the beginning of time, for this chronicler anyway, finds its origins in Stockbridge, with Theodore.

"In My Blood" emerges not merely as novelistic archive, but as eulogy, a measured recounting of life, as well as a testimony of deep mourning. It recaptures the lives and spirits of those now gone, but remains as well a documentation of profound human loss.

In a span of a few months John Sedgwick loses his mother, his marriage, his house with the view of his childhood home, only to provide us a gift that seemingly only artists can provide: a modern diary of richly complex people whose stories, and blood, now live within a genuine man of letters.

Thomas J. Cottle, professor of education at Boston University, is the author of "When the Music Stopped: Discovering My Mother." See "Bookings," Page E6, for information on a local appearance by John Sedgwick.