An engaging, if rough-hewn, memoir of escape from domestic abuse in Sweden.
The compelling memoir of a young Swedish woman’s journey from a neglected childhood to an abusive marriage and eventually to freedom from violence in the United States.
For 15 years, Bonde lived in fear of the man she had loved and married, whom she had met at a mall in Gothenburg when she was 15. Wisely starting her story with their first meeting, Bonde then backtracks to her childhood outside Gothenburg in the 1970s. Overlooked by parents who were distracted by their own divorce, embarrassed by her father’s renown as the first man to bring strip clubs to Sweden, and raped at 13 by an associate of her father’s, Bonde found refuge among the gentle druggies at the local mall. When she met 16-year-old Jared, she thought she’d found true love. But their meeting drew her into a cycle of abuse and violence that took more than a decade to escape. Bringing readers step by step through the stages of abuse—from Jared’s initial tenderness to his intense jealousy, his abrupt violence and remorse, his increasingly dangerous threats and his eventual imprisonment of her—Bonde portrays the psychology that inclines victims of violence to stay. Short chapters with descriptive subtitles keep the story moving forward, despite the somewhat cumbersome device of dated entries that characterizes the latter half of the book. Intended to help other victims of domestic violence, Bonde’s memoir documents a pervasive social reality, reminding readers that domestic violence crosses economic, social and national boundaries. While her book lacks the polish of literature (e.g., with occasionally awkward phrasings and summary that overpowers some scenes), Bonde’s story provides a fascinating window onto Swedish domestic life. Like a well-edited diary, its details accumulate into a gripping portrait nearly as startling as a Stieg Larsson novel. Challenging the stereotype of Swedish society as socially and sexually progressive, Bonde reveals a culture riven by broken marriages, mistresses, drug abuse and violence. Her memoir will be of particular interest to readers and collections seeking first-person accounts of contemporary Swedish life for women.
An engaging, if rough-hewn, memoir of escape from domestic abuse in Sweden.Pub Date: Oct. 3, 2011
ISBN: 978-1467037297
Page Count: 244
Publisher: AuthorHouse
Review Posted Online: Feb. 20, 2013
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A moving meditation on mortality by a gifted writer whose dual perspectives of physician and patient provide a singular...
A neurosurgeon with a passion for literature tragically finds his perfect subject after his diagnosis of terminal lung cancer.
Writing isn’t brain surgery, but it’s rare when someone adept at the latter is also so accomplished at the former. Searching for meaning and purpose in his life, Kalanithi pursued a doctorate in literature and had felt certain that he wouldn’t enter the field of medicine, in which his father and other members of his family excelled. “But I couldn’t let go of the question,” he writes, after realizing that his goals “didn’t quite fit in an English department.” “Where did biology, morality, literature and philosophy intersect?” So he decided to set aside his doctoral dissertation and belatedly prepare for medical school, which “would allow me a chance to find answers that are not in books, to find a different sort of sublime, to forge relationships with the suffering, and to keep following the question of what makes human life meaningful, even in the face of death and decay.” The author’s empathy undoubtedly made him an exceptional doctor, and the precision of his prose—as well as the moral purpose underscoring it—suggests that he could have written a good book on any subject he chose. Part of what makes this book so essential is the fact that it was written under a death sentence following the diagnosis that upended his life, just as he was preparing to end his residency and attract offers at the top of his profession. Kalanithi learned he might have 10 years to live or perhaps five. Should he return to neurosurgery (he could and did), or should he write (he also did)? Should he and his wife have a baby? They did, eight months before he died, which was less than two years after the original diagnosis. “The fact of death is unsettling,” he understates. “Yet there is no other way to live.”
A moving meditation on mortality by a gifted writer whose dual perspectives of physician and patient provide a singular clarity.Pub Date: Jan. 19, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-8129-8840-6
Page Count: 248
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: Sept. 29, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2015
PERSPECTIVES
Well-told and admonitory.
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
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