bookshelf

THE ABSENT EMBRACE

Name: THE ABSENT EMBRACE
Author: Braedon Kuts
ISBN: 978-1438212197

ONE SMALL GIRL'S RESILIENT SPIRIT

by Braedon Kuts ‧ RELEASE DATE: Dec. 2, 2010

Harrowing.

bookshelf

A highly personal and deeply discomforting memoir of neglect and abuse.

Kuts grew up never knowing want; her parents provided for every need, lavishing her with toys and encouraging her interest in art. But not all was as it seemed; behind closed doors, Kuts’ mother disciplined her with harsh spankings that evolved into beatings. After her parents’ divorce, Kuts’ home life unraveled—the kitchen cupboards went barren, her clothes became threadbare and, most devastatingly, her mother lost interest in parenting. By the age of 12, when the memoir begins, the author is starving, routinely panhandling and stealing from neighbors to quiet her hunger. The home she shares with her brother and neglectful mother, who has taken up inappropriate relationships with teenage boys, is no refuge—parties rage at all hours and drug use is rampant. Kuts battles addiction, survives sexual assault and defends herself against torment, both psychological and physical, at the hands of her mother. The narrative follows the family as it moves from California to Oregon, where Kuts finds herself in an even worse predicament. The extent of the neglect, as well as the horrific depictions of starvation, is almost unfathomable and the description of her abuse is heartbreaking. The fact that Kuts grew from a nearly illiterate child to an accomplished wordsmith in just a dozen year attests to her resilience. She is still very close to her story; though she tells it from a distance of decades, her pain still feels fresh. The meandering book runs long (and remains unfinished—a sequel, Please Don’t Love Me, is to pick up where this book ends), and the real question—why Kuts’ mother turned into a monster—is never resolved. But the book succeeds as therapy for its author—and a reminder to its readers to value the simple things, like shelter, sustenance and familial love.

Harrowing.

Pub Date: Dec. 2, 2010

ISBN: 978-1438212197

Page Count: 354

Publisher: CreateSpace

Review Posted Online: March 4, 2011

Review Program: Kirkus Indie

Categories:

BIOGRAPHY & MEMOIR | GENERAL BIOGRAPHY & MEMOIR

bookshelf

THE PURSUIT OF HAPPYNESS

FROM MEAN STREETS TO WALL STREET

by Chris Gardner with Quincy Troupe ‧ RELEASE DATE: June 1, 2006

Well-told and admonitory.

bookshelf

Young-rags-to-mature-riches memoir by broker and motivational speaker Gardner.

Born and raised in the Milwaukee ghetto, the author pulled himself up from considerable disadvantage. He was fatherless, and his adored mother wasn’t always around; once, as a child, he spied her at a family funeral accompanied by a prison guard. When beautiful, evanescent Moms was there, Chris also had to deal with Freddie “I ain’t your goddamn daddy!” Triplett, one of the meanest stepfathers in recent literature. Chris did “the dozens” with the homies, boosted a bit and in the course of youthful adventure was raped. His heroes were Miles Davis, James Brown and Muhammad Ali. Meanwhile, at the behest of Moms, he developed a fondness for reading. He joined the Navy and became a medic (preparing badass Marines for proctology), and a proficient lab technician. Moving up in San Francisco, married and then divorced, he sold medical supplies. He was recruited as a trainee at Dean Witter just around the time he became a homeless single father. All his belongings in a shopping cart, Gardner sometimes slept with his young son at the office (apparently undiscovered by the night cleaning crew). The two also frequently bedded down in a public restroom. After Gardner’s talents were finally appreciated by the firm of Bear Stearns, his American Dream became real. He got the cool duds, hot car and fine ladies so coveted from afar back in the day. He even had a meeting with Nelson Mandela. Through it all, he remained a prideful parent. His own no-daddy blues are gone now.

Well-told and admonitory.

Pub Date: June 1, 2006

ISBN: 0-06-074486-3

Page Count: 320

Publisher: Amistad/HarperCollins

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2006

Categories:

GENERAL BIOGRAPHY & MEMOIR | BIOGRAPHY & MEMOIR | BUSINESS

bookshelf

INTO THE WILD

by Jon Krakauer ‧ RELEASE DATE: Jan. 1, 1996

A wonderful page-turner written with humility, immediacy, and great style. Nothing came cheap and easy to McCandless, nor...

bookshelf

The excruciating story of a young man on a quest for knowledge and experience, a search that eventually cooked his goose, told with the flair of a seasoned investigative reporter by Outside magazine contributing editor Krakauer (Eiger Dreams, 1990).

Chris McCandless loved the road, the unadorned life, the Tolstoyan call to asceticism. After graduating college, he took off on another of his long destinationless journeys, this time cutting all contact with his family and changing his name to Alex Supertramp. He was a gent of strong opinions, and he shared them with those he met: "You must lose your inclination for monotonous security and adopt a helter-skelter style of life''; "be nomadic.'' Ultimately, in 1992, his terms got him into mortal trouble when he ran up against something—the Alaskan wild—that didn't give a hoot about Supertramp's worldview; his decomposed corpse was found 16 weeks after he entered the bush. Many people felt McCandless was just a hubris-laden jerk with a death wish (he had discarded his map before going into the wild and brought no food but a bag of rice). Krakauer thought not. Admitting an interest that bordered on obsession, he dug deep into McCandless's life. He found a willful, reckless, moody boyhood; an ugly little secret that sundered the relationship between father and son; a moral absolutism that agitated the young man's soul and drove him to extremes; but he was no more a nutcase than other pilgrims. Writing in supple, electric prose, Krakauer tries to make sense of McCandless (while scrupulously avoiding off-the-rack psychoanalysis): his risky behavior and the rites associated with it, his asceticism, his love of wide open spaces, the flights of his soul.

A wonderful page-turner written with humility, immediacy, and great style. Nothing came cheap and easy to McCandless, nor will it to readers of Krakauer's narrative. (4 maps) (First printing of 35,000; author tour)