 For the best experience on our site, use one of our supported browsers below. About the Author: Debra Van Ausdale is assistant professor of sociology at Syracuse University. Joe R. Feagin is graduate research professor in sociology at the University of Florida. Review:A wonderfully vivid account of how children learn about the 'first R'―race―even before they start school. The authors show how children as young as three have entered into and are experimenting with the tangled ideologies of race of the adult world. (Barrie Thorne, author of Gender Play: Girls and Boys in School)A landmark study that should change our understanding of the social genesis and maintenance of racism and the dynamics of hegemony. It is a must-read for anyone, especially parents and teachers interested in how these dynamics come into being, and it should be required reading in all school systems and universities. (Lewis R. Gordon, Professor of Philosophy and Africana Studies, University of Connecticut) A sensitive and politically sophisticated work of on-site observation and engaging scholarship which ought to shake our nation from its equanimity. The lessons we were given long ago by Dr. Kenneth Clark and, nearly a hundred years ago, by W.E.B. Du Bois have yet to be internalized. Perhaps, as the authors of this valuable and stirring work suggest, it is our children who will prove to be our wisest teachers. (Jonathan Kozol, author of Savage Inequalities: Children in America's Schools, author of Savage Inequalities: Children in America's Schools) Vivid and provocative. (Kirkus) Van Ausdale and Feagin challenge conventional theories of child development that are 'adultcentric' and removed, based mostly on attitude testing and behavioral checklists. The authors spent a year at a racially diverse day care center, observing children from three to six years old. The authors suggest that racially hostile and discriminatory behavior among children needs far more study and attention than it has had to date. (Booklist) Van Ausdale sought honesty from the children by never playing the role of 'sanctioning' adult, so that children learned to act more freely in front of her than they did in the presence of teachers. . . . The implication [of the author's work] is that racism will be much harder to root out than once believed, which makes the active teaching of tolerance all the more important. (The Instrumentalist) Early education professionals and interested parents will find it an important addition to their collections. (Publishers Weekly) The primary value of the book lies in its numerous interactional vignettes. This is an empirically rich book. (CHOICE) This is a scrupulously researched book. (Times Educational Supplement) A groundbreaking study of children's behavior, attitudes, and assumptions around race. (EBONY) "About this title" may belong to another edition of this title.
Fremont (After Long Silence, 1999) continues—and alters—her story of how memories of the Holocaust affected her family. At the age of 44, the author learned that her father had disowned her, declaring her “predeceased”—or dead in his eyes—in his will. It was his final insult: Her parents had stopped speaking to her after she’d published After Long Silence, which exposed them as Jewish Holocaust survivors who had posed as Catholics in Europe and America in order to hide multilayered secrets. Here, Fremont delves further into her tortured family dynamics and shows how the rift developed. One thread centers on her life after her harrowing childhood: her education at Wellesley and Boston University, the loss of her virginity to a college boyfriend before accepting her lesbianism, her stint with the Peace Corps in Lesotho, and her decades of work as a lawyer in Boston. Another strand involves her fraught relationship with her sister, Lara, and how their difficulties relate to their father, a doctor embittered after years in the Siberian gulag; and their mother, deeply enmeshed with her own sister, Zosia, who had married an Italian count and stayed in Rome to raise a child. Fremont tells these stories with novelistic flair, ending with a surprising theory about why her parents hid their Judaism. Yet she often appears insensitive to the serious problems she says Lara once faced, including suicidal depression. “The whole point of suicide, I thought, was to succeed at it,” she writes. “My sister’s completion rate was pathetic.” Key facts also differ from those in her earlier work. After Long Silence says, for example, that the author grew up “in a small city in the Midwest” while she writes here that she grew up in “upstate New York,” changes Fremont says she made for “consistency” in the new book but that muddy its narrative waters. The discrepancies may not bother readers seeking psychological insights rather than factual accuracy, but others will wonder if this book should have been labeled a fictionalized autobiography rather than a memoir. A vivid sequel that strains credulity.
Pub Date: Feb. 11, 2020 ISBN: 978-1-982113-60-5
Page Count: 352 Publisher: Gallery Books/Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Oct. 21, 2019 Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2019 Did you like this book? Page 2
Self-help advice and personal reflections on avoiding spousal fights while raising children. Before her daughter was born, bestselling author Dunn (Why Is My Mother Getting a Tattoo?: And Other Questions I Wish I Never Had to Ask, 2009, etc.) enjoyed steady work and a happy marriage. However, once she became a mother, there never seemed to be enough time, sleep, and especially help from her husband. Little irritations became monumental obstacles between them, which led to major battles. Consequently, they turned to expensive couples' therapy to help them regain some peace in life. In a combination of memoir and advice that can be found in most couples' therapy self-help books, Dunn provides an inside look at her own vexing issues and the solutions she and her husband used to prevent them from appearing in divorce court. They struggled with age-old battles fought between men and women—e.g., frequency of sex, who does more housework, who should get up with the child in the middle of the night, why women need to have a clean house, why men need more alone time, and many more. What Dunn learned via therapy, talks with other parents, and research was that there is no perfect solution to the many dynamics that surface once couples become parents. But by using time-tested techniques, she and her husband learned to listen, show empathy, and adjust so that their former status as a happy couple could safely and peacefully morph into a happy family. Readers familiar with Dunn's honest and humorous writing will appreciate the behind-the-scenes look at her own semi-messy family life, and those who need guidance through the rough spots can glean advice while being entertained—all without spending lots of money on couples’ therapy. A highly readable account of how solid research and personal testing of self-help techniques saved a couple's marriage after the birth of their child.
Pub Date: March 21, 2017 ISBN: 978-0-316-26710-6
Page Count: 272 Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: Jan. 18, 2017 Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2017 Did you like this book? Page 3
A 70-something reflects on becoming the father of his sixth child at age 59. Meyer fathered three sons during the Vietnam War era while married to his first wife. A journalism professor at California State University-Long Beach, he entered a second marriage to a student 27 years his junior, fathering two daughters and a son. After much agonizing about balancing career and family, Meyer took early retirement from his teaching to become a parent and a home-based freelance writer. Before his retirement, the first batch of his diary-like entries became a book, 1989's My Summer With Molly: The Journal of a Second Generation Father. After retirement, he became a regular journal-writer, musing about parenting and dozens of related threads. Just as Molly dominated the first collection of entries, son Franz dominates the second collection. At turns doctrinaire, old fuddy-duddy, self-deprecating, melancholy, humorous, even hip, Meyer is a thoughtful guide through daily life. The seemingly oblique title becomes clear in the context of the W.B. Yeats' quotation from which it is derived: "An aged man is but a paltry thing / A tattered coat upon a stick unless / Soul clap its hands and sing, and louder sing / For every tatter in its mortal dress..." Meyer sounds ageist at times, but throughout, he is determined to fight his own aging and to serve as a good husband and father. Eschewing sentimentality much of the time, Meyer can't help occasionally lapsing into teary-eyed territory. He concludes that "geezer fatherdom" is worth the costs, that "in the end, there is only love, active and remembered, to warm the chill of a cooling universe." Despite Meyer's unusual perspective, this journal contains memorable passages of joy and sorrow for parents and children of all ages.
Pub Date: Feb. 15, 2005 ISBN: 0-942273-05-2
Page Count: - Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 23, 2010
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A physician shares anecdotes—some sentimental, some dry-eyed—about his youthful patients and their parents. Rao, trained as a physician in both India and the U.S., settled 26 years ago in Porterville, Calif., where in addition to treating patients, he writes a medical advice column for the local newspaper—many of the brief chapters in the book appeared previously in the Porterville Recorder as columns. Arranged more or less by topic, the chapters cut across a wide swath of medical practice: the stages of child development, the freedom needed to grow up healthy, preventive medicine, curing illnesses when prevention has failed, good nutrition practices, the impacts of drugs on patients, the conundrums of heredity, medical wonders, the evolution of medical practice, the role of curiosity in medical treatment, medical detective work, curing patients facing daunting odds, the importance of family support, and the role of prayer. Rao's first-person narration addresses parents in a chatty, reassuring manner. He eschews alarmism in favor of optimism, setting parents at ease about rearing children who are healthy emotionally, physically and spiritually. He is sincere when he advocates laughter as a potent medicine, noting that an effective doctor not only laughs with his patients, but listens well, exudes compassion, expresses empathy and is highly trained in his field. At times, he seems overly rosy in his outlook, as when he suggests that state medical boards assist parents in determining a specific physician's complaint record—many state medical boards refuse to discuss complaints against physicians with patients. Such questionable advice is rare, however, as Rao presents positive and helpful advice for healthy parenting. A generally clear-minded, empowering book by a sympathetic professional who might well cause readers to wish he were their family doctor.
Pub Date: N/A ISBN: 0-9749761-0-5
Page Count: - Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 27, 2010
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A sweeping memoir chronicling the origins of the author's family and their subsequent struggle with poverty. After getting to know much-older Bowman Mercer through a pen-pal service, Pearl, the author’s mother, eventually leaves her abusive brother and their inherited house to move to Wyoming as Bowman’s wife. She weathers their paltry circumstances and survives Jeanette’s grueling birth and a near-poisoning by a jealous woman. As a little girl, the author lived in homes with dirt floors and rarely bathed, which often made her and her family–her parents and sister, Virginia–an object of ridicule. Nonetheless, she lived a largely happy childhood, developing a resilient, stubborn nature, and benefiting from her indulgent but well-meaning parents and helpful townspeople. With poignant empathy, the author successfully traces Pearl’s transformation from a pleasant, shy beauty to an unkempt grouch prone to hysterics. She also understands how to build suspense, but inexplicably sabotages her own groundwork by giving away key plot elements in the chapter titles. For instance, a new neighbor’s spooky friendliness–skillfully brought to life on the page–is prematurely explained by the chapter’s title, “Graduation, A Child Molester.” The occasional clunky point-of-view problem and repetition aside, Gardner offers an entertaining and heartfelt story.
Pub Date: Dec. 17, 2004 ISBN: 0-595-33464-4
Page Count: - Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 23, 2010
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An awkward, somewhat New Age-y title doesn’t begin to adequately serve this thorough analysis of human civilization and its primordial flaws. Blame it on that pesky old reptilian brain and the ensuing hierarchies hatched in its wake. Be they familial, societal, governmental, religious or whatever else, Deehan convincingly traces the root of all evil to the myriad of stratified, top-down, command-and-control hierarchies that stubbornly persist to this day. The problem, according to the author, is that these manmade systems—so pervasive in our everyday lives—actually run counter to the intrinsic human need and desire for relationships rooted in freedom and equality. He calls this natural compulsion “love.” Simply put, “love” works, inequity doesn’t. As evidence, Deehan, a former hospital administrator and Navy fighter pilot, reaches all the way back to the very beginning and the Big Bang, where he finds proof of the inherent righteousness of collaboration in a rapidly cooling bowl of intergalactic “quark soup.” After all, it was here that equal elemental particles were free to join up with whichever other particles they chose to in an unfathomable quest to create something greater than themselves. Concurring thoughts from pioneering thinkers such as Jared Diamond, Carl Sagan and others further underscore the thesis. Alas, the road mankind (under the undue influence of the self-serving brain) ultimately took was starkly different and probably had its roots in ancient Akkad, where readers are introduced to old king Sargon and his bloody, but ultimately fruitless, 150-year dynasty. The economy and ease in which the author is able to relate such scientific and historical data is commendable. The writing is clear and focused throughout. In this short yet profound work, hierarchy is the disease, and “love”—in the form of freedom and equality—is the cure. Sadly, one need only look at the profound challenges facing today’s ego-driven, self-interested world to realize that. An impressive foray into the inner workings of modern civilization—and how it might yet be saved from itself.
Pub Date: July 26, 2011 ISBN: 978-1425998516
Page Count: 206 Publisher: AuthorHouse
Review Posted Online: Dec. 11, 2012
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A woman grapples with the death of her son and mother through intense study of spiritual texts. The late-night knock at the door was one any parent dreads: police officers bearing terrible news. Bidot’s son, Richard, and her mother, Louigina, had been killed in a car-train collision. Devastated, she wailed, she rent her clothes, she beat a scalded and angry retreat into herself; here, she recounts those shattering moments, giving into days and months, with drama. Her emotions, and subsequent dealings with her family and friends, are raw but undercut by a lack of grammatical oversight: of communing with her daughter, “I tried to explain to her as much as I can”; of approaching the everyday, “The most important thing I had is peace of mind.” This is important because Bidot’s gradual re-composure has much to do with clarity of thought and self-expression. Her daughter and father provide glints of solace–if less than she may have hoped for–but her coming to terms lies primarily with reading. “The knowledge in the books taught me how to deal with my sorrow, sadness, and grief.” Aristotle, Plotinus, Bacon, Wilde, Remi, not to mention Tagore and Yogan-Gaibi, and perhaps foremost Kahlil Gibran, are quoted, though in a cherry-picked style. Even thematically it is difficult to grasp on a visceral level that “they answered the questions of why it happened to me, what concerned about my son’s dreams, and why did my loved ones leave without warning?” Still, give it to the author that she found a path to not just recovery but revelation through meditation, and she wishes to share this. For her, meditation is a way in and out and beyond one’s state of being: It is a window into the spirit, the bridge to salvation; “it expands the realm of our love to universality.” Unfortunately, she never gets down to the specifics of exactly how one goes about meditating to luminosity. A well-intentioned paean to open-mindedly reflecting on grief, if too nebulous for immediate application.
Pub Date: Nov. 30, 2007 ISBN: 978-1-4257-6821-8
Page Count: 158 Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 23, 2010
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A collection of witty anecdotes in which a 30-something woman combines her divorced friends’ stories with her own experiences of marital breakdown to explore the chaotic divorce culture of the late-20th century. Offering hilarious insight into the entanglements of divorced couples, novelist Karbo (Motherhood Made a Man Out of Me, 2000, etc.) presents her vocabulary pertinent to the divorcee dating scene, introducing terms like “divarried” (to describe separated “couples where one still pays the other one’s rent, who still send each other birthday presents, whose shoulders are perpetually available to cry on”) and “Exatitus A” (a disease that makes “you loathe while continuing to love the one who left you, usually for someone else, and you alternate between wanting to murder him and get him back”). Her live-in boyfriend, Matthew, remained “divarried” to Claudia—a wrathful lunatic who purchased livestock to combat depression and fetishized Winnie the Pooh characters. Had Claudia not clogged Karbo’s answering machine with belligerent messages, threatened suicide, and destroyed Karbo’s underwear (after breaking into the couple’s bedroom), this account may not have been written. The author’s comical depiction of the “bovine” Claudia, although mean-spirited, seems well deserved: “For months after The Underwear Episode, Claudia behaved like a nine-year-old girl angling for a pony.” Much of the tension between Karbo and her boyfriend transpired because of his reluctance to quash Claudia’s intrusions. Between insightful reflections on this tumultuous love triangle, Karbo amuses with keen observations of her friends’ marital mishaps, showing us nerve-wracking scenarios in which Brady Bunch–sized families are haunted by the father’s two ex-wives. Occasionally there is a depressing glimpse of the hapless divorcee’s unfortunate financial realties. Still, Karbo bounces us back to laughter with her outrageous interpretations of the historical divorces of Picasso and King Henry VIII. A laugh-out-loud read that will delight divorced readers and children of broken homes alike.
Pub Date: April 1, 2001 ISBN: 1-58234-126-5
Page Count: 236 Publisher: Bloomsbury
Review Posted Online: May 20, 2010 Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2001 Did you like this book? Page 9
A new method for taking on “the ultimate time-management project.” In her latest self-help book, Morgenstern (SHED Your Stuff, Change Your Life: A Four-Step Guide to Getting Unstuck, 2008, etc.), an internationally recognized organization consultant who has appeared on Oprah, Today, and other outlets, tackles parenting. To make comprehension easier, the author uses acronyms to break down the subject into eight manageable areas: provide, arrange, relate, and teach, followed by sleep, exercise, love, and fun. The first four areas are geared toward the child, whether it’s providing food and a home, sharing teachable moments, or arranging/scheduling a doctor’s appointment. The second four sections are for parents, so they can experience life independent of their roles as mom or dad—and have it long before the child leaves the nest. Morgenstern provides readers with several assessment tests to help parents discover the areas where they might be under- or overperforming. “No matter how practiced you are at the eight responsibilities in P.A.R.T. and S.E.L.F., what’s actually required of parents is the ability to continuously and seamlessly transition among all eight roles, and that’s tougher than it looks,” writes the author. “Like a master juggler who effortlessly tosses bowling pins…to a specific height at a specific arc and rhythm, so, too, must parents hone the essential time-management muscles that allow you to switch among eight roles while keeping every single one in motion.” As we all know, parenting is a daunting task, but Morgenstern’s bite-size, achievable goals and skill levels are simple to digest. Backed by scientific data and personal experience, the book is full of straightforward advice presented in an intriguing way. It will appeal especially to those who like to-do lists and find joy in checking off items as they are accomplished. A multipart common-sense approach to parenting that addresses a wide variety of the issues parents face in their complex lives.
Pub Date: Sept. 4, 2018 ISBN: 978-1-62779-743-6
Page Count: 352 Publisher: Henry Holt
Review Posted Online: May 28, 2018 Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2018 Did you like this book? Page 10
A divorced mother explores the dating scene and herself in this debut memoir. Binns, a 33-year-old clairvoyant, left her husband of 12 years after feeling invisible. In her book, she describes the dizzying succession of high-drama relationships that followed, from which she protected her 2-year-old son, Shane. Bouncing between overlapping men, the author assessed each one with sarcasm, self-doubt, and more than a little prickliness. (“What cave had he crawled out of?” she wondered when asked to explain her clairvoyance training.) She recalls alternately love-bombing and punishing her dithering partners, asking them to remember her birthday, then removing all traces of them in her life—then checking to see if they noticed. Binns begged for attention, then ignored phone calls; forgave—or rather, overlooked—traits that later repulsed her; and ascribed motivations to men without discussion. The author recounts that her writing and painting, moments with her son, and the occasional true intimacy—sometimes with Vietnam veteran Steve—provided some joy. She eventually shed her insecurity and alienation, confronted her memories of her parents’ terrible fights, endured two deaths, and found meaning in being a mother. In her wide-ranging memoir, Binns’ writing style is both canny and witty. She delivers acerbic comments about her own behavior (“It made me queasy to think of sex as payment, but it wasn’t as if I wasn’t getting anything out of that”). But her self-loathing and insatiable approval-seeking eventually become a bit oppressive. Self-obsessed (“He did not love me enough to…love himself”), hypersensitive to rejection, and quickly immersed in liaisons, she would find fault and tear up mementos while hiding her anger. Such morbid loneliness and interpersonal myopia bred contradictions. “How dare he judge me?” she asked about a man questioning her having an affair while she was married. Yet she considered another man’s extramarital turmoil “laughable.” She also discusses her so-called friends, who “tuned into my life for their weekly entertainment.” In these pages, the author genuinely relates her suffering and how she safeguarded her son’s welfare, and the book ends strongly on a ray of hope. But many readers will likely find it difficult to follow Binns’ painful journey. A candid but bumpy account of a woman’s search for happiness.
Pub Date: Nov. 13, 2018 ISBN: 978-1-63152-433-2
Page Count: 288 Publisher: She Writes Press
Review Posted Online: Sept. 7, 2018
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A penetrating glimpse into the modern world of caregiving. After two years attending meetings of a hospital caregivers’ support group, magazine writer Lake shares the members’ stories in a caring, instructive manner. Through the experiences of these individuals, the author explores timeless topics of love, hope, grief and anguish, as well as timely issues of health care, long-term care and the high cost of growing old. Lake shines as a storyteller, bringing to life such individuals as William, whose wife was slowly succumbing to Alzheimer’s; or Penny, who lived with her mother until having to place her in nursing care. Lake quickly goes beyond the group sessions to enter into these caregivers’ lives, observing their struggles firsthand. Her sympathetic portrayals are touching and thought-provoking, but Lake is at her best when examining the place and character of caregiving in today’s society. “Even the word caregiver,” she writes, “is a technical, postindustrial, post-feminist, public term—necessary only in societies in which caring for our old and dependent is no longer conscripted by family roles." The author tackles topics such as Medicaid, living wills and even the Affordable Care Act, along with the modern trappings of caregiving, such as Alzheimer’s testing and “automatic negative thoughts,” which plague members of the group. Her subjects put human faces to statistics and studies. Readers may find this book emotionally challenging, but they will be rewarded with a new perspective on growing old in America. Those who are currently caregivers will find in Lake’s subjects understanding and compassion, just as they share with each other in the context of the support group. In the spreading shadow of dementia, Alzheimer’s and other long-term diseases, Lake discovers hope, comfort and continued questions for the future.
Pub Date: Feb. 11, 2014 ISBN: 978-1-4516-7414-9
Page Count: 320 Publisher: Scribner
Review Posted Online: Dec. 22, 2013 Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2014 Did you like this book? Page 12
A scientist combines research and personal experience to advise women in abusive relationships. In this self-help book, Mailis (co-author: Beyond Pain, 2003) opens with an account of her physician colleague’s murder of his wife, also a doctor. The guide then moves to the author’s recollections of her verbally and emotionally abusive marriage. She details the many years of difficulty and denial she faced before leaving her husband, eventually broadening the narrative to incorporate stories from many of her acquaintances who have experienced turbulent relationships. The women’s tales look at the abuse, the decisions to abandon partners—or, in some cases, to stay with them—and the recovery process. Their testimony provides a wide range of experiences with common threads throughout. The author concludes that low self-esteem is the main reason women endure abuse (“It was never the professional part of us that felt deficient. It was our feminine selves who felt small, weak, timid, insecure, and unwomanly, allowing our abusers to control us”), although codependency, naiveté, and excessive empathy also appear to be factors. The final chapter is based on responses to a survey Mailis distributed to younger women in her network to measure their attitudes toward domestic violence. (The survey text is included in an appendix, though the author acknowledges that her sample is interesting but not statistically rigorous.) She is surprised to find that the shift she anticipated is not revealed in the survey results, which indicate that the younger women are not less likely to endure abuse and do not flee troubled relationships more quickly than those of Mailis’ generation. Half her respondents shared their own stories of abuse, suggesting that it continues to be widespread. The manual concludes with an analysis of the factors that may drive the prevalence of abuse in younger generations. The book, published in Canada, profiles Canadian women and gathers statistics primarily from that population. The women who provide the anecdotes include immigrants like the author and native-born Canadians, although they tend to be from similar socio-economic backgrounds. Drawing on the work of psychologist Joan Lachkar, Mailis focuses on “high-functioning women” who are “well-educated, successful, and career oriented.” Although the author incorporates published research (references are included in the volume’s backmatter), the narrative chiefly concentrates on the abused women’s anecdotes. The text is competently written and highly readable, with little psychological jargon or technical language. But some parts would benefit from further review. Chapter 5 examines how the women’s actions contributed to failed relationships in language (“maladaptive behaviors and denial”) that seems to hold them responsible for allowing abuse to occur. And the negative comments about overweight people are off-putting. While Mailis’ analysis of factors leading to abuse in younger women’s relationships is generally solid, there is a touch of pearl-clutching in describing the “scanty outfits with camera angles hyping their sexuality” of Madonna, Britney Spears, and Beyoncé. Still, most of the guide is filled with useful information for women seeking to determine if they are experiencing abuse, attempting to leave violent relationships, and trying to understand the characteristics of healthy partnerships. A valuable blend of research and anecdotes that explores why successful women experience abuse.
Pub Date: Sept. 25, 2019 ISBN: 978-1-9994395-7-6
Page Count: 178 Publisher: Sutherland House
Review Posted Online: June 12, 2019 Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2019
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In this novelistic memoir, a woman chronicles her anguish under her father’s tyranny and her escape through education. Grace Marie Hall is born in Arkansas in the 1940s, the middle child chronologically sandwiched between her older brother, Joe Buck, and her younger sister, Violet. Her family is poor, but Grace doesn’t really feel the weight of deprivation until she goes to school, meets her peers, and indulges in comparisons. Nevertheless, the bane of her existence isn’t financial scarcity but her father’s mercurial temper and despotic rule of the household, with his autocratic style of governance routinely permitted by a neurotically acquiescent mother. Grace finds a reprieve from the dull monotony of rural routines in books and vows to go to college, her ticket out of Arkansas, much to her father’s chagrin. But she marries Duddie Loomis, a man she met in grade school, and bears a child, a development that temporarily waylays her plans. Grace’s marriage is a tempestuous one—her rabidly racist husband is prone to violence—and she eventually returns home with her daughter. She ultimately manages to finish college and graduate school, a decade-long process, and escapes to California, where she meets Nick, a doctor and a delightfully stable human being. But Grace keeps getting pulled back to the dysfunctional home from which she delivered herself to care for her mother, addled with Alzheimer’s, and to help when Violet is beset by mental illness and cancer and when her father dies. In her engrossing work, Miller (The French, 1983) writes with both zest and charm. She laces the story with insightful aperçus about the claustrophobia of rural Arkansas while celebrating the power of literature (“I lived in these books, and they lived in my head and heart long after I was forced to put them down and do my homework or chores”). The memoir is only slightly fictionalized and follows closely the actual journey of the author, and as a result reads more like a remembrance than a novel. In either case, the tale remains intrepidly candid and offers a well-crafted peek at rustic life. An emotionally astute account of the oppressive confines of an unhappy family life.
Pub Date: May 15, 2018 ISBN: 978-1-63152-339-7
Page Count: 256 Publisher: She Writes Press
Review Posted Online: March 23, 2018
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Hunt recalls his life as a 13-year-old on a Louisiana plantation just after World War II. In 1946, the sugarcane plantation was still in many ways a relic of the antebellum South. Hunt, because his father ran the farming operations, had the privilege of living in the “Big House” near the African-American workers’ shacks in “The Quarter.” However, in this fine memoir, there’s no hint of condescension in the white Hunt’s interactions with the African-American families. Hunt felt welcome at the parties they held, and he enjoyed hearing performers named Nat and Ella and Lena singing from their radios. One of the field hands described Hunt’s father as “nearly ’bout like us colored folks, he ain’t got no land, no money, and he ain’t got much schoolin’.” Hunt was so color-blind that a well-meaning worker advised him that it would be best if he spent more time with those of his own kind. The suggestion arose mainly because he spent so much time with his best friend, a younger African-American boy nicknamed Papa. Their association was as deep as a boyhood friendship could possibly be, as illustrated by Hunt’s selfless efforts to help Papa learn to read and write. Although Hunt was well aware that the world beyond the dirt road was all-white—including his school and church—he was genuinely bewildered by warnings that his friendship with Papa could eventually pose a risk to both of them. The author intensifies the poignancy by revealing that the plantation was slowly dying, as workers migrated north instead of waiting to be replaced by postwar farm equipment. Meanwhile, Hunt kept right on reading Superman comics to Papa; however, the author doesn’t reveal what the boys thought about the plots of those fantastic stories. More significantly, Hunt’s detailed epilogue leaves out any information about Papa’s fate, which may disappoint many readers. Nevertheless, this is a beautiful memoir, and the author renders the lives along that dirt road with vivid, unforgettable humanity. A moving debut coming-of-age memoir.
Pub Date: Dec. 24, 2005 ISBN: 978-0979045400
Page Count: 190 Publisher: Bill Hunt Books
Review Posted Online: Feb. 20, 2014
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A knowledgeable parent dispenses advice to harried mothers who’ve forgotten how to care for themselves. Julie Burton was a busy mom of four, freelance writer, and fitness instructor when a panic attack left her “shaking, sobbing” on her sister’s front step. “You have to figure out a way to take care of yourself,” her sister urged. Having already overcome a battle with anorexia, Burton again devoted her energy to healing herself, discovering that “the only way that a mother can truly be present, engaged, connected, and nurturing with her child is if she’s present, engaged, connected, and nurturing with herself.” To help other women who feel they’ve sacrificed their health and identity to caring for their kids, she offers eight “self-care solutions,” such as “honor your body,” “cultivate happiness and joy,” “find gratitude and connection,” “set boundaries,” and “never give up.” Burton draws extensively on her own parenting experiences as well as interviews with other mothers to clearly illustrate why women must embrace self-care and how they can do so, especially given the intense demands of modern parenthood. One mom confesses: I am starting to realize that I need to develop a sense of myself if I am going to be a good parent for them. So…I go out with friends, exercise, and try to relax. The debut book is full of gentle, if somewhat shopworn, admonishments to give up the quest for perfection and to focus on living in the moment—Burton is all about support, not judgment, and many of her tips would be easy to put into action. Yet she writes, as she acknowledges, from a place of privilege. Blithe advice to make time for yoga classes and get more sleep is of little help to single moms stretched to the limit or those who work long hours or multiple jobs to support their families. Burton also unquestioningly buys into the tired notion that “women are the managers of the family, which includes being manager of their children and, oftentimes, of the relationship with their partners.” While she helpfully devotes a chapter to nurturing a relationship with a spouse, the idea that many women would be better able to care for themselves if their partners shouldered a greater share of the parenting burden gets short shrift. A much-needed reminder that it’s OK, even necessary, for mothers to consider their own needs, in addition to their children’s.
Pub Date: May 3, 2016 ISBN: 978-1-63152-068-6
Page Count: 224 Publisher: She Writes Press
Review Posted Online: July 21, 2016
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NPR contributor Shetterly tells the story of young married life as she and her husband set out from Maine to Los Angeles, but were ultimately forced to return home, stymied by the economic recession, illness and an unexpected pregnancy. This cozy, homespun memoir blends a call to community (“until all Americans realize this—how much we need each other—[some] of us will always fall through the cracks”) with a daily glimpse into one family’s experience of economic hardship in a faltering economy. In the spring of 2008, the couple headed west, conscious of the symbolic promise of going westward in the American mythos. Following an indirect route from Maine to California via the deep South, with two pets in tow, Shetterly describes nights in cheap motels, the adventure of the road, her unexpected delight in the state of Texas—despite her antipathy to George W. Bush—and the underhanded tactics of a corrupt moving company. There is a dangerously run-down apartment on arrival, the unexpected news of a pregnancy, a crazy neighbor upstairs, indignation at the privileges of the L.A. super-rich, the death of a beloved cat and, of course, one problem after another seeking and not finding full employment. Through it all, the author found inspiration in the pioneer stories of Laura Ingalls Wilder and the lyrics of folk songwriter Greg Brown. Bruised and penniless, the couple finally decided to return home to live with Shetterly’s mother in rural Maine and made the cross-country drive in reverse, finding continuing economic struggles and the rewarding challenges of family in hard times. A sincere but edgeless Prairie Home Companion–style memoir of a down-on-their-luck young couple, likely to resonate with readers interested in community values and the appeal of the simple life.
Pub Date: March 8, 2011 ISBN: 978-1-4013-4146-6
Page Count: 256 Publisher: Voice/Hyperion
Review Posted Online: Jan. 8, 2011 Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2011 Did you like this book? Page 17
Unsentimental memoir of the author’s three-month solo hike from California to Washington along the Pacific Crest Trail. Following the death of her mother, Strayed’s (Torch, 2006) life quickly disintegrated. Family ties melted away; she divorced her husband and slipped into drug use. For the next four years, life was a series of disappointments. “I was crying over all of it,” she writes, “over the sick mire I’d made of my life since my mother died; over the stupid existence that had become my own. I was not meant to be this way, to live this way, to fail so darkly.” While waiting in line at an outdoors store, Strayed read the back cover of a book about the Pacific Crest Trail. Initially, the idea of hiking the trail became a vague apparition, then a goal. Woefully underprepared for the wilderness, out of shape and carrying a ridiculously overweight pack, the author set out from the small California town of Mojave, toward a bridge (“the Bridge of the Gods”) crossing the Columbia River at the Oregon-Washington border. Strayed’s writing admirably conveys the rigors and rewards of long-distance hiking. Along the way, she suffered aches, pains, loneliness, blistered, bloody feet and persistent hunger. Yet the author also discovered a newfound sense of awe; for her, hiking the PCT was “powerful and fundamental” and “truly hard and glorious.” Strayed was stunned by how the trail both shattered and sheltered her. Most of the hikers she met along the way were helpful, and she also encountered instances of trail magic, “the unexpected and sweet happenings that stand out in stark relief to the challenges of the trail.” A candid, inspiring narrative of the author’s brutal physical and psychological journey through a wilderness of despair to a renewed sense of self.
Pub Date: March 20, 2012 ISBN: 978-0-307-59273-6
Page Count: 336 Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: Dec. 19, 2011 Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2012 Did you like this book? Page 18
Children “do” race and racism, runs the premise of this ethnographic report from two scholars—and watching how they “do” them can teach us something about teaching, learning, and racial concepts and ideals as well. Van Ausdale (Sociology/Syracuse) and Feagin (Sociology/Univ. of Florida, Gainesville) conducted an 11-month study of children between the ages of three and six in multi-ethnic day-care centers. Van Ausdale observed what children say about race and skin color—their own and others—as well as how they respond to adult instruction about those concepts. Her observations are presented in a text co-authored with Feagin and backed by an extensive reevaluation of both standard and controversial theories of child development. The authors argue that our fundamental mistake is the imposition of adult ways of thinking and learning upon children; they gathered a large amount of empirical data on how the young define their own skin color, that of others, and what they feel adults are trying to teach them about it. Even very small children act and interact with themselves, with other children, and with adults in a fiercely independent and highly developed manner; by the time a four-year-old encounters someone of a different skin color, he incorporates his own observations into a system of thought that includes sophisticated and fluid thinking about specifics and generalities. An adult teaching a child “about race,” they suggest, may be teaching a child more about adult-child relationships, with the moral object of the lesson falling by the wayside. We might be able to rethink race, the authors conclude, if we rethink the distinctions between children and ourselves. A study intended for a general audience as well as academics; although the lay reader may find the theoretical jargon burdensome, the scenes of youngsters interacting are vivid and provocative.
Pub Date: Jan. 1, 2001 ISBN: 0-8476-8861-5
Page Count: 240 Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
Review Posted Online: May 20, 2010 Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2000 Did you like this book? Page 19
In a debut memoir, a former CNN reporter and current Emmy Award–winning Good Morning America producer recounts her family’s painful history. Before Peterson was 10, both her parents had suffered mental breakdowns; her father, after two suicide attempts, finally confessed to his wife that he was gay. After the couple divorced, her mother plummeted into severe depression. For months, she was hospitalized, while her daughter expressed her own pain by reverting to bed-wetting. When her mother returned home, although as warm and loving as she always had been, her spirit seemed broken. Her weight ballooned, she no longer cared about her physical appearance, and, most alarming, she let the house become overrun with debris: newspapers, unopened mail, dirty dishes and clothing, dust and grime. When appliances broke, she failed to get them fixed. The kitchen, Peterson recalls, “began to take on the feel of a used appliance museum.” For college, Peterson left her Wisconsin home for Manhattan and then moved to Atlanta, Germany, and Turkey on posts for CNN. Each time she returned, however, she saw her mother increasingly overwhelmed with trash, refusing Peterson’s offer to help, to hire cleaners, or to find another place to live. Even her car was stuffed with garbage, and the house became infested with mice, chipmunks, bats, and insects. For years, the toilets did not work, causing an acrid stench. As the author’s career took off and as she married and had children, her mother deteriorated, barring everyone from the house and denying that she was a hoarder. Peterson reminded her of their shared love of white dresses, “a way of starting over…a way of wiping the whole slate clean.” But her mother was incapable of renewal, and she died trapped by depression, loneliness, and chaos. Peterson’s generous homage to her mother offers an empathetic look at a baffling, frustrating mental illness. A candid, moving memoir about the many complexities of family.
Pub Date: Sept. 15, 2015 ISBN: 978-0-06-238697-7
Page Count: 352 Publisher: Morrow/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: June 28, 2015 Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2015 Did you like this book? Page 20
A memoir of finding a new way forward following significant misfortune. In The Hot Young Widow’s Club (2019), her recent TED book, McInerny (It’s Okay to Laugh: (Crying Is Cool Too), 2017, etc.) told the story of her life after she suffered three tragedies in one year: a miscarriage and the deaths of her father and her husband, Aaron. Her latest book is a continuation of sorts, chronicling her relationship with Aaron and her new relationship with Matthew, a divorced man with two children. With both witty humor and profundity, the author addresses the harsh reality of death and the life-changing effects of her grief, especially that critical first year when every day was an anniversary of some sort that needed to be lived through as best she could. Her story is also a celebration of life, sexual desire, and learning to love what is right in front of you, regardless of how others feel or react to the situation. The author, who hosts the podcast Terrible, Thanks for Asking, openly shares her fears about potentially losing Aaron’s extended family as members of her own, the difficulties and triumphs of blending Matthew’s family with hers, and the gratefulness she has felt about having two different relationships with two extraordinary men. Additionally, within this tragic love story are minor themes of feminism, sexism, and religion. McInerny’s best friends and their unwavering support through all the ups and downs are also significant factors in this perceptive tale. The author’s love for both Aaron and Matthew is consistently apparent but, refreshingly, never maudlin. McInerny delivers a highly emotional—but not overly somber—story that will appeal to anyone who has suffered a significant loss and is seeking a path toward life’s next chapter. Reflective and tender writing on finding new meanings and a different life after heartbreaking loss.
Pub Date: March 26, 2019 ISBN: 978-0-06-279240-2
Page Count: 288 Publisher: Dey Street/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Feb. 19, 2019 Did you like this book? Page 21
Tortured by his past, a Salvadoran man contemplates a solitary future in this dark memoir. Arteaga’s memoir begins with a startling admission: He possesses a “brain condition” that affords him an impeccable memory of life events from as far back as when he was not even 3 years old. To him, this is hardly a blessing; he considers himself accursed with the horrific, lasting memories of his youth spent living with an uncle who was unceremoniously executed by rebels in turbulent 1980s-era El Salvador. That forced young Arteaga and his single mother to flee, eventually to his aunt’s home in the mountains, then to an abusive boyfriend’s house while his mother worked in the coffee bean and sugar fields. Arteaga admits to early rebellious behavior and thievery in Catholic school and beyond, but his immigration to Los Angeles in 1987—what should have been a positive life-changing moment—only worsened his penchant throughout high school for stealing, truancy, sex and lying, a talent he attributes to his mother’s behavior. A move to Garden City, Kan., found Arteaga working at a variety of blue-collar jobs while a desire for a relationship led him to Internet chat rooms and emails with prospective girlfriends. But, again, he met with frustration and disillusionment, even after the birth of his daughter from a longer-term relationship. The disappointments multiplied as did his increased reclusiveness; even his cat got run over. All that remain are the 15 tattoos he’s received commemorating “people in my life that have hurt me,” he writes, “Emotionally, physically, and just simply people that I need to forget.” The fact that there’s nary a sunny sky to be found in Arteaga’s short, grim confessional isn’t the only problem with this well-meaning work. The raw, unedited text is distressingly littered with awkward phrasings, misspelled words (e.g., Arteaga writes “incest” when describing “incense”) and a plethora of homophones, right up to the memoir’s last word. Written from the heart of a troubled soul, this dreary, depressing memoir needs more polish.
Pub Date: June 23, 2013 ISBN: 978-1490597096
Page Count: 120 Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: Sept. 26, 2013
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Few books come with warning labels, but this one does: ``Readers should not attempt any of the activities described in these pages.'' Why not? Because the outrÇ sexual practices described by the Brames (she: a former therapist; he: a former archaeologist) and Jacobs (a freelance writer) in this bold report carry psychological and, often, physical risks—though that hasn't stopped the two-hundred-odd practitioners whom the authors interviewed, nor the millions who share their passion for sexual dominance and submission (D&S). All D&S, the authors explain, involves a ``power exchange'' in which one partner ``tops,'' or dominates, and the other ``bottoms,'' or submits—whether through bondage, wrestling, whipping, body-piercing, etc. After running through the history of D&S scholarship—with expected nods at Krafft-Ebbing and Havelock Ellis—the Brames and Jacob present an overview of the practices themselves, which range from infantilism (the bottom often wears a diaper and sucks on a bottle) and depersonalization (the bottom may act like an object, perhaps a footstool, or an animal, most often a pony) to spanking, cross-dressing, foot fetishes, enemas, branding, and so on. The authors discuss the methods, psychological bases, and historical backgrounds of the practices, each of which is illuminated by interviews with practitioners who speak with great seriousness (``Deliberate, ritualized infliction of what we call pain can change the relationship of the body and that which lives in the body,'' says Fakir Musafar, who likes to dangle from trees by way of ``fleshhooks''). And as for the risks, nearly all of these sexual outlaws identify with the ``Scene'' (the vast D&S underground that's highly self-aware: Two thousand infantilists, for example, belong to a ``Diaper Pail Fraternity'') and with its credo of ``Safe, Sane, and Consensual.'' The definitive guide to the sexual styles of those who walk on the wild side.
Pub Date: June 1, 1993 ISBN: 0-679-40873-8
Page Count: 608 Publisher: Villard
Review Posted Online: May 20, 2010 Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 1993 Did you like this book? Page 23
Children “do” race and racism, runs the premise of this ethnographic report from two scholars—and watching how they “do” them can teach us something about teaching, learning, and racial concepts and ideals as well. Van Ausdale (Sociology/Syracuse) and Feagin (Sociology/Univ. of Florida, Gainesville) conducted an 11-month study of children between the ages of three and six in multi-ethnic day-care centers. Van Ausdale observed what children say about race and skin color—their own and others—as well as how they respond to adult instruction about those concepts. Her observations are presented in a text co-authored with Feagin and backed by an extensive reevaluation of both standard and controversial theories of child development. The authors argue that our fundamental mistake is the imposition of adult ways of thinking and learning upon children; they gathered a large amount of empirical data on how the young define their own skin color, that of others, and what they feel adults are trying to teach them about it. Even very small children act and interact with themselves, with other children, and with adults in a fiercely independent and highly developed manner; by the time a four-year-old encounters someone of a different skin color, he incorporates his own observations into a system of thought that includes sophisticated and fluid thinking about specifics and generalities. An adult teaching a child “about race,” they suggest, may be teaching a child more about adult-child relationships, with the moral object of the lesson falling by the wayside. We might be able to rethink race, the authors conclude, if we rethink the distinctions between children and ourselves. A study intended for a general audience as well as academics; although the lay reader may find the theoretical jargon burdensome, the scenes of youngsters interacting are vivid and provocative.
Pub Date: Jan. 1, 2001 ISBN: 0-8476-8861-5
Page Count: 240 Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
Review Posted Online: May 20, 2010 Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2000 Did you like this book? Page 24
A relationship manual intended to help the unwary avoid the land mines that litter the dating landscape. Eddy (It’s All Your Fault!, 2012) and Hunter (Bait & Switch, 2015) collaborate in this dating survival guide that consists of one-tenth hope and nine-tenths somber warnings. Specifically, they focus on what they term “high-conflict people” (or “HCPs”), who “tend toward all-or-nothing thinking, unmanaged emotions, extreme behaviors or threats, and blaming others.” The bulk of the book is devoted to helping readers identify HCPs, preferably before any deep emotional or financial commitments have been made. “Many of us have blinders on when it comes to love,” the authors write, and their advice is intended to remove those blinders by asking simple, straightforward questions and identifying various types of HCPs, including the “Narcissistic HCP,” the “Histrionic HCP,” and even the “Antisocial (Sociopathic) HCP.” Using lightly fictionalized stories as cases in point, Eddy and Hunter effectively lead readers through a labyrinth of conflict-addicted individuals, most of whom actively try to hide their natures using techniques that the authors lay out in clinical detail. Indeed, readers are never for a moment allowed to let their guards down: “HCPs thrive when they are able to control their fears,” readers are told in a representative passage. “How do they do this? They use you!” The authors further complicate the picture with biomedical factors such as bipolar disorder, chemical addiction, and PTSD. Overall, Eddy and Hunter offer a very frank discussion of the ways that readers make themselves vulnerable by intentionally refusing to think clearly about their own blind spots. Much of the advice in this book may strike readers as simple common sense, such as that people should wait a while before committing to serious sexual relationships, for instance, and that they should beware of people who curse at them. But taken with a grain of salt, it all makes for an intriguing cautionary tale. A thorough, if sometimes thoroughly cynical, account of the perils of forming relationships with those who thrive on drama.
Pub Date: Aug. 15, 2017 ISBN: 978-1-936268-12-2
Page Count: 238 Publisher: Unhooked Books
Review Posted Online: Sept. 7, 2017
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Well-known journalists Roker (The Storm of the Century: Tragedy, Heroism, Survival, and the Epic True Story of America's Deadliest Natural Disaster: The Great Gulf Hurricane of 1900, 2015, etc.) and Roberts team up to bring readers an intimate look into their family life. Using anecdotal stories of their childhoods growing up in the segregated South, the couple explains how their own formative years have influenced their decisions about how to raise their children. Faith and family values are strongly represented as the authors discuss the pros and cons of juggling children and full-time, high-powered jobs. "Every day we strive to take the wisdom that our parents passed on to us and integrate their knowledge and experience with what we've learned in our own lives,” they write. “As a result, we've been able to share their legacy with our children, instilling their values and ours, as we face the daily challenges of being mom and dad, husband and wife, and chief cooks and bottle washers." Both authors take pride in their work, with Roker expounding on one of the most important moments in his career—witnessing the swearing in of President Barack Obama—while Roberts talks about the difficult decision she had to make in choosing family life over a coveted career move. The authors share their love for one another, often defined by little gestures, as well as some of the grievances or aggravations they sometimes feel toward one another, which allows readers to realize that this couple is just as normal as any other. Though some readers may tire of the alternating perspectives, most will gain a solid understanding of what it means to be a modern family in America, balancing the inherent difficulties and pitfalls of the technological age with the necessity of preserving deep, heartfelt core values. Sincere stories of life as working parents who value family above all else.
Pub Date: Jan. 5, 2016 ISBN: 978-0-451-46636-5
Page Count: 288 Publisher: NAL
Review Posted Online: Nov. 11, 2015 Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2015 Did you like this book? Page 26
The story of how the author and his family dealt with the senseless murder of his older brother. In 1973, 4-year-old Kushner (Journalism/Princeton Univ.; The Bones of Marianna: A Reform School, a Terrible Secret, and a Hundred-Year Fight for Justice, 2013, etc.), a contributing editor of Rolling Stone, was living with his parents and two brothers in a Tampa suburb where children roved freely and without fear. But then, Kushner’s 11-year-old brother Jon disappeared while on an errand to buy candy for his youngest brother. The family didn’t learn what happened until after police investigators found his brutalized body buried in a shallow grave. In thinking about the incident as an adult, Kushner realized that he barely remembered Jon and that the details others gave him about the death “didn’t stick.” However, it was clear to him even as a child that both his parents and his oldest brother, Andy, understood the horror of what had happened and grieved over the loss profoundly. Eventually, the family settled into an outwardly new, but inwardly damaged, normal while Kushner and Andy acclimated themselves to being two brothers instead of three. Yet the author and his family never forgot Jon, who haunted them all. More than 20 years after Jon’s murder, the family discovered that one of the men convicted of killing Jon was scheduled for a parole hearing. Kushner began an in-depth investigation of Jon’s murder, episodes of which he would not be able to piece together in narrative form after his father’s death in 2010. Much as the author desired closure, he realized it was a fantasy; what he sought instead was to understand how the grief he and his family suffered was “present and evolving” and how it had shaped them into the people they became. Kushner’s moving book is not only a memorial to a brother tragically deprived of his right to live; it is also a meditation on the courage necessary to live freely in a world riven by pain, suffering, and evil. A probing, poignant memoir about tragedy, grief, and trying to cope.
Pub Date: March 15, 2016 ISBN: 978-1-4516-8253-3
Page Count: 256 Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Dec. 17, 2015 Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2016 Did you like this book? |
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