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In Constructing a Nervous System, Margo Jefferson writes that “memoir is your present negotiating with versions of your past for a future you’re willing to show up in.” The filmmaker and author Chase Joynt opens a chapter of his memoir, Vantage Points, with those words. They help capture his own process of grappling with his childhood, which included years of sexual abuse from his maternal uncle, whom he dubs X. “When I attempt to map my experiences with X into sequence,” he writes, “I am left only with a series of snapshots and scenes that ever evade organization into a clear chronological record of our relationship.” Wading through a collection of memories, half-truths, and archival traces, Joynt faced the challenge of distilling a coherent narrative from a traumatic past. Vantage Points is a moving portrait of his effort to put the pieces together. When he happened upon Marshall McLuhan in his family history, he found an unexpected way...