A woman reconnects with her biological parents and addresses her challenging relationship with the father who raised her in this debut memoir.
Banis was born in Boston in the summer of 1968 and was immediately given up for adoption. Her adoptive father, Diederich, was a German who experienced the horrors of World War II as a child. Lilia, her adoptive mother, hailed from an affluent Swiss family. As an infant, Banis lived briefly in Switzerland before her parents moved with her to America. Throughout her life, she writes, her relationship with her father was strained. On a fishing trip during her adolescence, she says that he remarked to her, “I should have adopted a boy.” In high school, Banis met Charles, whom she would later marry despite her parents’ disapproval; the couple went on to have two children. The author’s relationship with Diederich became increasingly fraught following the death of her mother from ovarian cancer. A new chapter in her life began when she met and bonded with her biological mother, Elizabeth Vornholdt, who gave her the information to track down Johnathan Bennett, her birth father. Soon after, her adoptive dad’s health began to rapidly deteriorate, and her birth mother was diagnosed with a brain tumor. Banis’ prose transports readers to dark places—none more so than the hospital room of her dying parent, which she describes in visceral detail: “After my dad fell into a predictable rhythm of breathing, I leaned over him and quietly told him I loved him and that I appreciated everything he ever did for me.” Her matter-of-fact style also has the power to charm, as when she describes clumsily dropping her cellphone after receiving her first message from her biological dad: “I stepped into the street after it as if my life depended on it. The light for me to cross was red, and a taxi nearly hit me because I lurched out in front of it.” Despite a smattering of comedic interludes, though, this is a desperately sad story. Still, its message is one of hope and forgiveness, which will surely offer strength to those facing similar challenges.
A heart-rending remembrance that lays bare complex familial relationships.Pub Date: Feb. 4, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-5043-9758-2
Page Count: 216
Publisher: BalboaPress
Review Posted Online: July 24, 2018
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Categories: GENERAL BIOGRAPHY & MEMOIR | BIOGRAPHY & MEMOIR
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Doyle offers another lucid, inspiring chronicle of female empowerment and the rewards of self-awareness and renewal.
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More life reflections from the bestselling author on themes of societal captivity and the catharsis of personal freedom.
In her third book, Doyle (Love Warrior, 2016, etc.) begins with a life-changing event. “Four years ago,” she writes, “married to the father of my three children, I fell in love with a woman.” That woman, Abby Wambach, would become her wife. Emblematically arranged into three sections—“Caged,” “Keys,” “Freedom”—the narrative offers, among other elements, vignettes about the soulful author’s girlhood, when she was bulimic and felt like a zoo animal, a “caged girl made for wide-open skies.” She followed the path that seemed right and appropriate based on her Catholic upbringing and adolescent conditioning. After a downward spiral into “drinking, drugging, and purging,” Doyle found sobriety and the authentic self she’d been suppressing. Still, there was trouble: Straining an already troubled marriage was her husband’s infidelity, which eventually led to life-altering choices and the discovery of a love she’d never experienced before. Throughout the book, Doyle remains open and candid, whether she’s admitting to rigging a high school homecoming court election or denouncing the doting perfectionism of “cream cheese parenting,” which is about “giving your children the best of everything.” The author’s fears and concerns are often mirrored by real-world issues: gender roles and bias, white privilege, racism, and religion-fueled homophobia and hypocrisy. Some stories merely skim the surface of larger issues, but Doyle revisits them in later sections and digs deeper, using friends and familial references to personify their impact on her life, both past and present. Shorter pieces, some only a page in length, manage to effectively translate an emotional gut punch, as when Doyle’s therapist called her blooming extramarital lesbian love a “dangerous distraction.” Ultimately, the narrative is an in-depth look at a courageous woman eager to share the wealth of her experiences by embracing vulnerability and reclaiming her inner strength and resiliency.
Doyle offers another lucid, inspiring chronicle of female empowerment and the rewards of self-awareness and renewal.Pub Date: March 10, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-9848-0125-8
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Dial
Review Posted Online: Dec. 22, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2020
Categories: GENERAL BIOGRAPHY & MEMOIR | BIOGRAPHY & MEMOIR | SELF-HELP
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PROFILES
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
The debut memoir from the pop and fashion star.
Early on, Simpson describes the book she didn’t write: “a motivational manual telling you how to live your best life.” Though having committed to the lucrative deal years before, she “walked away,” fearing any sort of self-help advice she might give would be hypocritical. Outwardly, Simpson was at the peak of her success, with her fashion line generating “one billion dollars in annual sales.” However, anxiety was getting the better of her, and she admits she’d become a “feelings addict,” just needing “enough noise to distract me from the pain I’d been avoiding since childhood. The demons of traumatic abuse that refused to let me sleep at night—Tylenol PM at age twelve, red wine and Ambien as a grown, scared woman. Those same demons who perched on my shoulder, and when they saw a man as dark as them, leaned in to my ear to whisper, ‘Just give him your light. See if it saves him…’ ” On Halloween 2017, Simpson hit rock bottom, and, with the intervention of her devoted friends and husband, began to address her addictions and underlying fears. In this readable but overlong narrative, the author traces her childhood as a Baptist preacher’s daughter moving 18 times before she “hit fifth grade,” and follows her remarkable rise to fame as a singer. She reveals the psychological trauma resulting from years of sexual abuse by a family friend, experiences that drew her repeatedly into bad relationships with men, most publicly with ex-husband Nick Lachey. Admitting that she was attracted to the validating power of an audience, Simpson analyzes how her failings and triumphs have enabled her to take control of her life, even as she was hounded by the press and various music and movie executives about her weight. Simpson’s memoir contains plenty of personal and professional moments for fans to savor.
An eye-opening glimpse into the attempted self-unmaking of one of Hollywood’s most recognizable talents.Pub Date: Feb. 4, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-06-289996-5
Page Count: 416
Publisher: Dey Street/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Feb. 16, 2020
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