The Portrait
$5,000
One life, told in full.
Start with The PortraitLife story books for families
Their life story, written from their own words and bound for the whole family.
We interview them by video, from wherever they’re most comfortable, then write the book, restore the family photographs and deliver sewn hardcover copies. Nobody in the family has to write a word.
The first conversation is free, by phone or video. Editions from $5,000.
Who is the book for?
Someone I love
A parent, grandparent, spouse, sibling or friend, with or without an occasion.
Plan a giftSomeone we’ve lost
A book gathered from the people who knew them, with the photographs and letters the family keeps.
About tribute booksThe person behind the photographs
Most families know the outline: where someone was born, what work they did, who they married. What’s usually missing is the part in between: why they left, what they were afraid of at twenty-five, the job they nearly took, what their own mother said at the door.
A BrightSide book puts those things in one place. Someday a grandchild will want to know how she met him, why they moved and what she would tell them now, and the answer will be on a shelf, drawn from her own recorded stories.
What your family has today, and what it could have
| Today | With a BrightSide book |
|---|---|
| A handful of stories, retold secondhand | Their whole life, in order, from their own words |
| A box of photos nobody can label | Photos with names, dates and the story behind them |
| Each relative remembers a different version | One account the whole family shares |
| You know what they did, but not why | The reasons, the doubts, the lessons they’d pass on |
| Stories that stay with whoever heard them | A book the grandchildren will still have |
Why now, not someday
What fades first isn’t the big stories. It’s everything around them: the name of the street, why they left, what their own mother used to say.
There’s usually a date.
A 70th or 90th birthday, a fiftieth anniversary, a retirement, a reunion where everyone will finally be in one room. A book takes three to six months from the first interview, so the date decides when to begin. Plan around a date
They’re the best person to tell it.
A secondhand retelling keeps what happened and loses the reasons. The way they tell it, the phrases they use and the jokes they save for the punchline can only come from them.
There’s more room when nobody is rushing.
Each conversation runs about two hours, and they set the pace. A book started well ahead of a date leaves time to revisit a chapter or add a photograph that turns up late.
There’s rarely a deadline for a book like this, which is exactly why it gets put off.
Everything that goes into one book
A professional interviewer leads the conversations. A writer on our team turns them into the book, a proofreader checks every chapter, and your family approves it before anything is printed.
- Hours of their own voice, recorded in full, with the recordings available to your family
- A complete life story of 25,000 words or more
- Every chapter read and approved by your family
- Every photograph repaired, with the files returned to you
- Cover, dust jacket and page design
- A sewn hardcover for every household, and a digital copy of the finished book on request
- One person coordinating it all, from the first call to delivery
From a client
I thought I was giving my mother a nice birthday present. I didn’t expect to sit down with the finished book and read it straight through.
I already knew most of the stories. I grew up on them. What got me was reading them in her words, in her order, and realizing how many obvious questions I’d never thought to ask. She had a whole life before she was my mother, and I’d only ever known the outline of it. There are pages where I can hear her saying it out loud.
Partway through I started thinking about my own kids, and which version of their grandmother they’d end up with. Probably four or five stories, secondhand, the way I’d been telling them. Now they’ll have her in her own words, whenever they want her.
I thought I was buying my mother a gift. It turned out to be one for all of us.
— Melissa M.
Researchers at Emory University found that adolescents who know more about their family’s history tend to report higher self-esteem and a stronger sense of control over their lives.
Source: Emory University, Family Narratives Project (Robyn Fivush and Marshall Duke).
Who’s behind your book
BrightSide Books was founded by Alex Alickolli in Cheshire, Connecticut, after most of his grandfather’s stories slipped away before anyone thought to write them down. That is still the reason for everything we do: ask the questions while there’s time, and keep the answers for good.
Every project has a small team around it: a professional interviewer who leads the conversations, a writer who shapes them into the book, a proofreader who checks every chapter before your family reads it, and a project manager who coordinates everything from the first call.
We work on one book at a time, so each family has our full attention while their book is underway.
Alex, Founder
Choose where to start
Every edition gets the same writing, design and binding. What changes is how much of the story there’s room to tell.
Recommended for most families
The Heritage
$9,500
Room for the whole life, not just the highlights. We recommend it for most families because it has enough conversations for a life with several distinct chapters, and a larger page where the photographs can run big.
Compared with The Portrait: up to nearly twice the conversations, about 60% more of their story, a larger page for photographs, and five more copies.
Start with The HeritageThe Legacy
From $18,000
Generations of family history, documents and many contributors.
Compared with The Heritage: 11 or more conversations, the longest book, a square page for full-page photographs and documents, and five more copies.
Talk about The LegacyNot sure which fits? Tell us about them and we’ll recommend one. If The Portrait will tell the story well, we’ll say so.
Tell us who you have in mind.
Send a short note about them, or about yourself. We’ll reply within 24 hours, and the first conversation is free.
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