An insightful, thought-provoking probe into the impulses of sexual desire.
A collection of musings on actress Matthews’ sexual history, including several incidents of abuse as a child—as told to and arranged by critic Shields (How Literature Saved My Life, 2013, etc.).
Originally conceived as a documentary about Matthews’ side job as an English dubber of Italian pornography, the project developed into a much more revealing examination of her feelings about desire, sex, and love. Corresponding with Shields, her cousin once removed, Matthews reveals the extent to which the repeated sexual trauma she suffered as a child has affected her life. Matthews refers to her trauma as the experience that “formatted” her; all subsequent experiences have been interpreted or refracted by her abuse. Shields, too, notes in his introduction that the project’s focus shifted to whether or not one important question could be answered: “How and to what degree is it possible to get beyond early trauma?” However, the psychological trauma experienced by Matthews as a child was not limited to sexual abuse. She also delves into the complex relationship she has with her mother, whose Jekyll-and-Hyde personality, along with her drinking problem, instilled in her paranoid and guilty thoughts about sex and pleasure. As Matthews digs deeper into her reflections on past lovers and relationships, she has a startling knack for self-analysis, describing her continual need to be the object of desire as well as the many instances that lead to her “intimacy-junkie” diagnosis. Behind Matthews’ conclusion that she lacks ownership of her body is Shields. Like Freud’s case studies, Shields acts as a gatekeeper of Matthews’ life, shaping the details of her experiences into his interpretation of her narrative. In this way, their collaboration is further complicated and creates a dramatic entanglement that goes far beyond the therapist-session quality of Matthews’ monologue.
An insightful, thought-provoking probe into the impulses of sexual desire.Pub Date: June 9, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-940450-64-3
Page Count: 128
Publisher: McSweeney’s
Review Posted Online: March 19, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2015
The author's youthfulness helps to assure the inevitable comparison with the Anne Frank diary although over and above the...
Elie Wiesel spent his early years in a small Transylvanian town as one of four children.
He was the only one of the family to survive what Francois Maurois, in his introduction, calls the "human holocaust" of the persecution of the Jews, which began with the restrictions, the singularization of the yellow star, the enclosure within the ghetto, and went on to the mass deportations to the ovens of Auschwitz and Buchenwald. There are unforgettable and horrifying scenes here in this spare and sombre memoir of this experience of the hanging of a child, of his first farewell with his father who leaves him an inheritance of a knife and a spoon, and of his last goodbye at Buchenwald his father's corpse is already cold let alone the long months of survival under unconscionable conditions.
Pub Date: Jan. 16, 2006
ISBN: 0374500010
Page Count: 120
Publisher: Hill & Wang
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2006
Well-told and admonitory.
Young-rags-to-mature-riches memoir by broker and motivational speaker Gardner.
Born and raised in the Milwaukee ghetto, the author pulled himself up from considerable disadvantage. He was fatherless, and his adored mother wasn’t always around; once, as a child, he spied her at a family funeral accompanied by a prison guard. When beautiful, evanescent Moms was there, Chris also had to deal with Freddie “I ain’t your goddamn daddy!” Triplett, one of the meanest stepfathers in recent literature. Chris did “the dozens” with the homies, boosted a bit and in the course of youthful adventure was raped. His heroes were Miles Davis, James Brown and Muhammad Ali. Meanwhile, at the behest of Moms, he developed a fondness for reading. He joined the Navy and became a medic (preparing badass Marines for proctology), and a proficient lab technician. Moving up in San Francisco, married and then divorced, he sold medical supplies. He was recruited as a trainee at Dean Witter just around the time he became a homeless single father. All his belongings in a shopping cart, Gardner sometimes slept with his young son at the office (apparently undiscovered by the night cleaning crew). The two also frequently bedded down in a public restroom. After Gardner’s talents were finally appreciated by the firm of Bear Stearns, his American Dream became real. He got the cool duds, hot car and fine ladies so coveted from afar back in the day. He even had a meeting with Nelson Mandela. Through it all, he remained a prideful parent. His own no-daddy blues are gone now.
Well-told and admonitory.Pub Date: June 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-06-074486-3
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Amistad/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2006
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