A CLIENT CALLED NOAH: A Family Journey Continued

by Josh Greenfeld ‧ RELEASE DATE: Feb. 1, 1986

The third installment of Greenfeld's sometimes shocking, frequently heartbreaking but always relentlessly honest reminiscences of life with his brain-damaged son, Noah. The series began with A Child Called Noah (1970) and continued with A Place for Noah (1977). Now, Greenfeld picks up the story in January, 1977, with Noah, age 11, just embarking on adolescence. Though Noah's body is manifesting the signs of approaching manhood, his mind remains that of an 18-month-old infant. Incapable of intelligible speech, incontinent, wracked by tantrums, Noah is the center about which the Greenfelds move in a complex saraband of resentment, guilt, frustration and love. Greenfeld spares no one, neither himself, his Japanese wife Foumiko, nor Noah's older brother Karl in telling the story. There is no sentimentalizing here; Greenfeld lays bare the conflicting emotions in prose that is often as stark as a medical diagnosis. His own impatience, his wife's perfectionist demands, their elder son's rebelliousness, are all examined without flinching. The result is a work that stuns the reader with its revelations of human frailty and fortitude. When it becomes apparent that caring for Noah at home is no longer feasible if the marriage and the family are to survive, he is placed in an institution. Here, Skinnerian ""behavior modification"" techniques include a series of ""rewards"" (junk food) and ""punishments"" (spanking). The Greenfelds are appalled by both and eventually bring Noah home. Since Greenreid has in the meantime developed a cardiac condition, Noah is set up in a separate home nearby, with 24-hour supervision. The situation is difficult but the marriage and the family have been saved. When last seen, Noah is 19 and living at an adult group home. His condition is unchanged but he displays ""new evidences of his capacity to learn."" He can, for example, now pour ketchup by himself onto a hot dog. As Greenfeld wryly states, ""I prefer mustard on hot dogs myself. But, as I have long learned, with Noah you take what you can get."" A wise and ultimately uplifting look at the torments and triumphs of brain. damaged children and their families. Moving and powerful.

Pub Date: Feb. 1, 1986

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Henry Holt

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 1986

Categories: NONFICTION