With his podcast-turned-book “The Memory Palace: True Short Stories of the Past,” writer and host Nate DiMeo aims to show readers that history isn’t just a dry accumulation of dates and bold-faced names.
Nate DiMeo's new book"The Memory Palace" draws from his podcast of the same name. ,” writer and host Nate DiMeo aims to show readers that history isn’t just a dry accumulation of dates and bold-faced names. Rather, it’s a living, breathing thing that can hold personal relevance for us here in the present—provided we’re able to see things through the right lens.
“I have a lifelong fascination with the inherent unreality of the past,” says DiMeo, “and the idea that these are all things that really happened, but that the only way to access them is through an act of imagination.” At times, his stories recall the wistful nostalgia of radio broadcaster Paul Harvey, whose long-running program, “The Rest of the Story,” teasingly unfurled forgotten bits of lore about famous celebrities and important historical figures. Where DiMeo differs from Harvey however, is in his willingness to tell tales that complicate our view of the past and bring uncomfortable truths to the fore.
Other stories emphasize the chaotic, contingent aspects of history. In “The Nickel Candy Bar,” DiMeo takes readers on a wild adventure through time that begins with the creation of the Baby Ruth candy bar and ends with the atomic bombing of Hiroshima. Reading it feels something like falling into a particularly fascinating rabbit hole while clicking links on Wikipedia or getting lost in the fictive realities of postmodern novelists like E.L. Doctorow and Benjamin Labatut.
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