Aunt Melba's Thanksgiving

The Author's Family

• The author has a crazy relative, Aunt Melba, who is a clairvoyant and a black sheep in the family.
• Aunt Melba is a former trapeze artist and currently lives in Alaska on a fishing boat that rests on dry land.

Family Gatherings

• The whole family gathers at the author's grandmother's house in Indiana for Thanksgiving.
• Aunt Melba steals the show even though she never attends, and everyone talks about her instead.
• When the author was younger, family gatherings were fun, with cousins and aunts and uncles.
• The cousins, who are mostly older than the author, have stopped coming to the gatherings since they got married and started going to their other relatives' houses for Thanksgiving.

Aunt Melba's Letters

• Aunt Melba writes letters to the family, not to tell them about her life, but to report on what they've been doing.
• She writes in long hand on the backs of store fliers, which she saves to avoid wasting paper.
• Her letters often contain information about the author and their cousins, although no one claims to talk to her.
• The letters are often written on the reverse of advertisements, which the author finds puzzling.