An unblinking and valuable portrait of hope.
A debut memoir chronicles surviving—and thriving—despite postpartum depression.
Growing up on a Mennonite farm in Canada, Tallman, one of 11 children, was no stranger to hard work. Her father was an abusive disciplinarian who mellowed as the years passed (she eventually forgave him), but her mother was a kind Christian woman who was loved by many. Tallman married, and after having a girl and a boy, it seemed like she had the perfect family. At the age of 41, she had just begun a new career as a chaplain in a veterans’ hospital when she unexpectedly became pregnant with her third child. After giving birth to a beautiful baby girl, she should have been happy—but she was not. Grieving the deaths of her mother and brother, she began to spiral deeper into overwhelming depression. At her darkest moments, she shockingly contemplated killing herself—and her baby. Desperate, she turned to her doctor and, after attempting to hang herself, she was committed to a psychiatric ward. Divided into three parts, this slim memoir begins with Tallman’s story and includes some typical color family photographs. In Part II, she veers from her personal account, claiming that resilience is the key to recovery and that anyone can develop it. In this thoughtful, essaylike discussion, the author writes that “Resilience is the Result of Hundreds of Tiny Steps.” More details of her own process of recovery would have made this advice stronger, but she does note that exercise helped and describes some therapy. In Part III, she cobbles together ideas for the prevention and care of postpartum depression (for example, education). Tallman’s smooth prose flows quickly, and even though some of the experiences she recounts were rough, her voice remains gentle. Her childhood anecdotes contain a vivid mixture of lovely images and sad memories—there’s the sweet smell of farm earth being tilled in spring, and then there are the horrifying times she was molested by a teacher. Always realistic, the author’s soothing suggestions can be a helpful beginners’ guide for those who are suffering similar trauma.
An unblinking and valuable portrait of hope.Pub Date: Aug. 13, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-5255-4114-8
Page Count: 156
Publisher: FriesenPress
Review Posted Online: Oct. 23, 2019
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
An autobiography as toxic and addictive as any drug its author has ever ingested.
The legendary booze-addled metal rocker turned reality-TV star comes clean in his tell-all autobiography.
Although brought up in the bleak British factory town of Aston, John “Ozzy” Osbourne’s tragicomic rags-to-riches tale is somehow quintessentially American. It’s an epic dream/nightmare that takes him from Winson Green prison in 1966 to a presidential dinner with George W. Bush in 2004. Tracing his adult life from petty thief and slaughterhouse worker to rock star, Osbourne’s first-person slang-and-expletive-driven style comes off like he’s casually relating his story while knocking back pints at the pub. “What you read here,” he writes, “is what dribbled out of the jelly I call my brain when I asked it for my life story.” During the late 1960s his transformation from inept shoplifter to notorious Black Sabbath frontman was unlikely enough. In fact, the band got its first paying gigs by waiting outside concert venues hoping the regularly scheduled act wouldn’t show. After a few years, Osbourne and his bandmates were touring America and becoming millionaires from their riff-heavy doom music. As expected, with success came personal excess and inevitable alienation from the other members of the group. But as a solo performer, Osbourne’s predilection for guns, drink, drugs, near-death experiences, cruelty to animals and relieving himself in public soon became the stuff of legend. His most infamous exploits—biting the head off a bat and accidentally urinating on the Alamo—are addressed, but they seem tame compared to other dark moments of his checkered past: nearly killing his wife Sharon during an alcohol-induced blackout, waking up after a bender in the middle of a busy highway, burning down his backyard, etc. Osbourne is confessional to a fault, jeopardizing his demonic-rocker reputation with glib remarks about his love for Paul McCartney and Robin Williams. The most distinguishing feature of the book is the staggering chapter-by-chapter accumulation of drunken mishaps, bodily dysfunctions and drug-induced mayhem over a 40-plus-year career—a résumé of anti-social atrocities comparable to any of rock ’n’ roll’s most reckless outlaws.
An autobiography as toxic and addictive as any drug its author has ever ingested.Pub Date: Jan. 25, 2010
ISBN: 978-0-446-56989-7
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2009
IN THE NEWS
Stricter than, say, Bergen Evans or W3 ("disinterested" means impartial — period), Strunk is in the last analysis...
Privately published by Strunk of Cornell in 1918 and revised by his student E. B. White in 1959, that "little book" is back again with more White updatings.
Stricter than, say, Bergen Evans or W3 ("disinterested" means impartial — period), Strunk is in the last analysis (whoops — "A bankrupt expression") a unique guide (which means "without like or equal").Pub Date: May 15, 1972
ISBN: 0205632645
Page Count: 105
Publisher: Macmillan
Review Posted Online: Oct. 28, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1972
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