FOR LOVE OF ANNE

by Claude de Leusse ‧ RELEASE DATE: Nov. 19, 1973

. . .this memoir, sweet -- not too sweet, painful -- infinitely, easily and instantaneously commits the fifteen years of Anne's short life to the page with the reminder, via Leon Bloy, that ""In the face of a child's death, art and poetry come to resemble a great destitution."" Anne, from the time when she was over a year, was diagnosed as having some strange disease (one of only 52 known cases) in which an overproductive enzyme doomed her to a kind of ""auto-destruction."" She's seen here, with the heightened sensibility which is perhaps an incurable illness' only endowment, the gentle, pretty child in the increasingly swollen, frail body -- in and out of hospitals (transfusions and perfusions without end), brave mostly, fretful and anxious also. ""We cheated a little. We cheated often. That was the game"" -- down to the last player. And it is of course one of those irreparably sad, sad stories.

Pub Date: Nov. 19, 1973

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: McKay

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 1973

Categories: NONFICTION