For the people we wish we had recorded.
A Tribute Book is a printed memorial volume for someone who has already passed. It is built from the people who loved them, the letters they wrote, the photographs they kept, and the documents that survived them. It is not the same as a memoir — there is no interview with the narrator — but it is a real book, made with the same care.
- Up to ten recorded conversations with family members, longtime friends, and colleagues — conducted by an American writer.
- Research into the historical record — census, military, immigration, and local newspapers — to verify the life's outline.
- Restoration and inclusion of up to fifty family photographs, letters, and documents.
- A printed, linen-bound hardcover — five copies, in a presentation box, delivered in four to six months.
A Tribute Book is the right choice when the person has passed within the last several years, when there is still a circle of people who knew them well, and when the family wants something more lasting than a slide-show video — a book that grandchildren and great-grandchildren can hold.
We are honest with families about what is and isn't possible. A Tribute Book cannot recover a voice that was never recorded — but it can preserve, in archival form, the voice of the people who remember.
How a Tribute Book begins.
A twenty-minute call. We will ask about the person, the family, and what survives in writing and in memory. From there we will tell you, honestly, whether a Tribute Book is the right project.