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
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A first novel, this is also a first person account of Scout's (Jean Louise) recall of the years that led to the ending of a mystery, the breaking of her brother Jem's elbow, the death of her father's enemy — and the close of childhood years. A widower, Atticus raises his children with legal dispassion and paternal intelligence, and is ably abetted by Calpurnia, the colored cook, while the Alabama town of Maycomb, in the 1930's, remains aloof to their divergence from its tribal patterns. Scout and Jem, with their summer-time companion, Dill, find their paths free from interference — but not from dangers; their curiosity about the imprisoned Boo, whose miserable past is incorporated in their play, results in a tentative friendliness; their fears of Atticus' lack of distinction is dissipated when he shoots a mad dog; his defense of a Negro accused of raping a white girl, Mayella Ewell, is followed with avid interest and turns the rabble whites against him. Scout is the means of averting an attack on Atticus but when he loses the case it is Boo who saves Jem and Scout by killing Mayella's father when he attempts to murder them. The shadows of a beginning for black-white understanding, the persistent fight that Scout carries on against school, Jem's emergence into adulthood, Calpurnia's quiet power, and all the incidents touching on the children's "growing outward" have an attractive starchiness that keeps this southern picture pert and provocative. There is much advance interest in this book; it has been selected by the Literary Guild and Reader's Digest; it should win many friends.
Pub Date: July 11, 1960
ISBN: 0060935464
Page Count: 323
Publisher: Lippincott
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 1960
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
Soft-focus story moves right along with few surprises. This time around, Hannah avoids the soap-opera complications of her...
Another middle-aged mom in a muddle.
After years of false starts and big hopes, Elizabeth’s ruggedly handsome husband Jack, a former football star, just landed a spot as a sportscaster on national news. He still loves her, even though much younger women are giving him come-hither looks. Heck, he doesn’t want to betray the love of his life after she helped him kick drugs and stuck by him even when he was a struggling has-been. And won’t it seem hypocritical if he fools around with his sexy assistant while he does in-depth reporting on a rape case involving a famous basketball center? Well, he fools around anyway. Elizabeth, nicknamed Birdie, knows nothing of this, but she withdraws from Jack when her hard-drinking, salt-of-the-earth father has a stroke and dies. Now no one will call her “sugar beet” ever again. Time to return home to Tennessee and contend with Anita, the sort-of-evil stepmother so trashy she wears pink puffy slippers all day long. Naturally, it turns out that Anita actually has a heart of gold and knows a few things about Birdie’s dead mother that were hushed up for years. Mom was an artist, just like Birdie, and an old scandal comes to light as Anita unrolls a vibrant canvas that portrays her secret lover. Perhaps, Birdie muses, her mother died of heartbreak, never having followed her true love or developed her talent. Has she, too, compromised everything she holds dear? Hoping to find out, Birdie joins a support group that promises to reconnect confused women with their passion. She and Jack separate, prompting a how-dare-you fit from their grown daughters. Will Birdie fly her empty nest? Will she go back to college for a degree in art? Will her brooding watercolors ever sell?
Soft-focus story moves right along with few surprises. This time around, Hannah avoids the soap-opera complications of her previous tales (Summer Island, 2001, etc.).Pub Date: July 1, 2002
ISBN: 0-345-45071-X
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2002
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