A lyrically candid and heartfelt memoir.
An acclaimed folk-rock singer and memoirist shares personal essays, reflections, and occasional poems about her autistic son.
Moorer’s son, John Henry, had just begun to speak his first words when he suddenly lost interest in every toy his mother offered him and went silent. A year later, he was diagnosed with severe Level 3 autism, which not only rendered him functionally mute, but also affected his “balance, coordination and motor skills.” The son of two musicians, John Henry would often become overwhelmed by the songs Moorer would sing or play for him. In reflecting on the bitter irony of her situation, the author writes, “I felt as if we had lost a way to bond on top of everything else.” As he grew older, John Henry would wake up in the middle of the night and wander, disrobe in public, begin screaming “for seemingly no reason” at inappropriate times, or become defiant and “refuse to take medicine.” His constant need for supervision proved especially difficult for a mother whose career required her to be on the road—not to mention her own personal crises, such as a breast cancer scare and, later, a divorce from John Henry’s father. Yet as Moorer gained a deeper understanding of her son’s neurodiversity, she gradually learned to appreciate the insights he gave her into living life with an open heart and mind and to surrender to his difference, in whatever ways it manifested. Poignant and profoundly humane, this book plumbs the depths of a mother-child connection and celebrates the human capacity to grow into graceful acceptance of the “wild and uncontrollable” nature of life. It’s clear that Moorer’s talents extend beyond music, as she builds on the literary promise she demonstrated in her acclaimed first book, Blood (2019).
A lyrically candid and heartfelt memoir.Pub Date: Oct. 12, 2021
ISBN: 978-0-306-92307-4
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Hachette
Review Posted Online: Aug. 31, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2021
BOOK REVIEW
The heartbreaking story of an emotionally battered child delivered with captivating candor and grace.
The former iCarly star reflects on her difficult childhood.
In her debut memoir, titled after her 2020 one-woman show, singer and actor McCurdy (b. 1992) reveals the raw details of what she describes as years of emotional abuse at the hands of her demanding, emotionally unstable stage mom, Debra. Born in Los Angeles, the author, along with three older brothers, grew up in a home controlled by her mother. When McCurdy was 3, her mother was diagnosed with breast cancer. Though she initially survived, the disease’s recurrence would ultimately take her life when the author was 21. McCurdy candidly reconstructs those in-between years, showing how “my mom emotionally, mentally, and physically abused me in ways that will forever impact me.” Insistent on molding her only daughter into “Mommy’s little actress,” Debra shuffled her to auditions beginning at age 6. As she matured and starting booking acting gigs, McCurdy remained “desperate to impress Mom,” while Debra became increasingly obsessive about her daughter’s physical appearance. She tinted her daughter’s eyelashes, whitened her teeth, enforced a tightly monitored regimen of “calorie restriction,” and performed regular genital exams on her as a teenager. Eventually, the author grew understandably resentful and tried to distance herself from her mother. As a young celebrity, however, McCurdy became vulnerable to eating disorders, alcohol addiction, self-loathing, and unstable relationships. Throughout the book, she honestly portrays Debra’s cruel perfectionist personality and abusive behavior patterns, showing a woman who could get enraged by everything from crooked eyeliner to spilled milk. At the same time, McCurdy exhibits compassion for her deeply flawed mother. Late in the book, she shares a crushing secret her father revealed to her as an adult. While McCurdy didn’t emerge from her childhood unscathed, she’s managed to spin her harrowing experience into a sold-out stage act and achieve a form of catharsis that puts her mind, body, and acting career at peace.
The heartbreaking story of an emotionally battered child delivered with captivating candor and grace.Pub Date: Aug. 9, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-982185-82-4
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: May 30, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2022
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
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
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