COMING BACK: Rebuilding Lives After Crisis and Loss

by Ann Kaiser Stearns ‧ RELEASE DATE: April 29, 1988

Yet another entry in the how-to-survive-traumatic-developments sweepstakes, this one by the author of Living Through Personal Crisis (1984), the million-plus sales of which were sparked by a glowing Ann Landers' plug. Like others of its kind, this relies on case histories (more detailed than average) interspersed with words of wisdom from the author and other pundits. It is also padded with material from books by other survivors: Vietnam prisoner-of-war Robinson Risner; brain-cancer victim Karen Brownstein, et al. Checklists are blessedly sparser than usual, and Stearns eschews phony uplift in stressing the point that complete emotional healing takes time: a year was required for one woman to begin recovery from the death of her ribbon-winning Tennessee Walking Horse. Healing strategies (primarily for bereavement or crippling conditions) are singularly variegated. A pregnant woman arranged to have the induced delivery of her dead, deformed eight-month fetus at home. She and her husband rocked the baby and encouraged their five-year-old daughter to hold him. Another did not feel right until she had met, and personally forgiven, the woman motorist who had killed her seven-year-old son. Nothing special here: just another runner in a crowded field.

Pub Date: April 29, 1988

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Random House

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 1988

Categories: NONFICTION