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MIRROR MIRROR

A COLLECTION OF MEMOIRS AND SHORT STORIES

Hart’s memoir charts her psychological process of overcoming a painful childhood.

  This bittersweet collage of memories is categorized into five sections. In Part I, “Childhood by the Sea,” Hart establishes the unsettling relationship she had with her parents, both of whom belittled and terrorized her in a household mired in conditional love. The chapter “Good Mother Bad Mother” shows her father’s frightening volatility when he discovers that she’s drawn on her bedroom wall. Her mother lovingly comforts her while condemning the father’s behavior. Soon after, the mother calls her stupid and ugly, illustrating the disjointed, inconsistent parenting her mother and father practiced. In Part II, Hart recalls her boarding-school years, when she made friends and her parents divorced. Part III covers high school and beyond: Kennedy’s assassination, literary enlightenment, the importance her mother placed on appearances, her father’s continued emotional cruelty. The author explores her Jewish roots in Part IV, revealing the origins of her parents’ psychological hang-ups. In Part V, she reconciles with her parents, their faults and the person she is today. Hart’s lyrical, well-paced prose saves her story from falling into the “poor me” category of memoirs. Her smooth writing style, sharp insights and eye for detail make her family problems compelling. But while interesting separately, the somewhat fragmented vignettes are more significant because Hart has rendered them into a complete picture. Indeed, this collection illustrates Socrates’ philosophy that “the unexamined life is not worth living.” As the author begins her story at childhood, moves forward in her history, jumps back two generations and returns to her present, she shows how she internalized the external factors that were beyond her control. Each section reads as though she intuitively regressed to capture the emotional mindset of whatever age she was recalling. She also reveals how she rose above the negativity and eventually realized her authentic self. The stories culled from her memory, as well as the way in which they’re analyzed and organized, map a process of overcoming childhood adversity.   A hopeful, finely rendered portrait of a dysfunctional family and its effects on the author.

 

Pub Date: March 16, 2012

ISBN: 978-0615498089

Page Count: 224

Publisher: And Then Press

Review Posted Online: Jan. 3, 2012

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MAGIC HOUR

Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.

Sisters work together to solve a child-abandonment case.

Ellie and Julia Cates have never been close. Julia is shy and brainy; Ellie gets by on charm and looks. Their differences must be tossed aside when a traumatized young girl wanders in from the forest into their hometown in Washington. The sisters’ professional skills are put to the test. Julia is a world-renowned child psychologist who has lost her edge. She is reeling from a case that went publicly sour. Though she was cleared of all wrongdoing, Julia’s name was tarnished, forcing her to shutter her Beverly Hills practice. Ellie Barton is the local police chief in Rain Valley, who’s never faced a tougher case. This is her chance to prove she is more than just a fading homecoming queen, but a scarcity of clues and a reluctant victim make locating the girl’s parents nearly impossible. Ellie places an SOS call to her sister; she needs an expert to rehabilitate this wild-child who has been living outside of civilization for years. Confronted with her professional demons, Julia once again has the opportunity to display her talents and salvage her reputation. Hannah (The Things We Do for Love, 2004, etc.) is at her best when writing from the girl’s perspective. The feral wolf-child keeps the reader interested long after the other, transparent characters have grown tiresome. Hannah’s torturously over-written romance passages are stale, but there are surprises in store as the sisters set about unearthing Alice’s past and creating a home for her.

Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.

Pub Date: March 1, 2006

ISBN: 0-345-46752-3

Page Count: 400

Publisher: Ballantine

Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2005

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THE CATCHER IN THE RYE

A strict report, worthy of sympathy.

A violent surfacing of adolescence (which has little in common with Tarkington's earlier, broadly comic, Seventeen) has a compulsive impact.

"Nobody big except me" is the dream world of Holden Caulfield and his first person story is down to the basic, drab English of the pre-collegiate. For Holden is now being bounced from fancy prep, and, after a vicious evening with hall- and roommates, heads for New York to try to keep his latest failure from his parents. He tries to have a wild evening (all he does is pay the check), is terrorized by the hotel elevator man and his on-call whore, has a date with a girl he likes—and hates, sees his 10 year old sister, Phoebe. He also visits a sympathetic English teacher after trying on a drunken session, and when he keeps his date with Phoebe, who turns up with her suitcase to join him on his flight, he heads home to a hospital siege. This is tender and true, and impossible, in its picture of the old hells of young boys, the lonesomeness and tentative attempts to be mature and secure, the awful block between youth and being grown-up, the fright and sickness that humans and their behavior cause the challenging, the dramatization of the big bang. It is a sorry little worm's view of the off-beat of adult pressure, of contemporary strictures and conformity, of sentiment….

A strict report, worthy of sympathy.

Pub Date: June 15, 1951

ISBN: 0316769177

Page Count: -

Publisher: Little, Brown

Review Posted Online: Nov. 2, 2011

Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 1951

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