The author candidly examines his relationships with his wife and family and the changes they went through to stay together.
One man’s midlife crisis surrounding love, marriage and parenthood.
As a child, Blair imagined his adulthood including motorcycles and the freedom to come and go as he pleased. Years later, he was tied down with a heating-and-air-conditioning repair job, a wife, four children (one of them severely autistic), a mortgage and no motorcycle. He was living the placid life of a middle-aged man whose dreams had been set aside. Blair’s existence had settled into a daily rut, and he believed that only “an act of great faith or courage [would] change [his] circumstances when [his] life [was] nothing but a repetition.” Every day was centered on work and the constant struggle to help his autistic son maneuver through his life. Blair’s honest writing recounts the relentless need to be there for Michael through his seizures and tantrums, and the inner turmoil he felt toward his son—loving the child during tender moments of play and angry at other times when things just couldn’t be normal, which caused Blair to feel he was inadequate as a parent. The author’s need for a change became more urgent. Excessive drinking and sexual fantasies of his wife with another man were not enough, and Blair, desperate for an escape route, turned to another woman, finding passion and excitement in her arms. Internal confusion over his infidelity collided with the outer reality of his wife’s anger, and the resulting changes surprised even the author.
The author candidly examines his relationships with his wife and family and the changes they went through to stay together.Pub Date: March 6, 2012
ISBN: 978-1-4516-3605-5
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Scribner
Review Posted Online: Nov. 12, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2011
A highly readable account of how solid research and personal testing of self-help techniques saved a couple's marriage after...
Self-help advice and personal reflections on avoiding spousal fights while raising children.
Before her daughter was born, bestselling author Dunn (Why Is My Mother Getting a Tattoo?: And Other Questions I Wish I Never Had to Ask, 2009, etc.) enjoyed steady work and a happy marriage. However, once she became a mother, there never seemed to be enough time, sleep, and especially help from her husband. Little irritations became monumental obstacles between them, which led to major battles. Consequently, they turned to expensive couples' therapy to help them regain some peace in life. In a combination of memoir and advice that can be found in most couples' therapy self-help books, Dunn provides an inside look at her own vexing issues and the solutions she and her husband used to prevent them from appearing in divorce court. They struggled with age-old battles fought between men and women—e.g., frequency of sex, who does more housework, who should get up with the child in the middle of the night, why women need to have a clean house, why men need more alone time, and many more. What Dunn learned via therapy, talks with other parents, and research was that there is no perfect solution to the many dynamics that surface once couples become parents. But by using time-tested techniques, she and her husband learned to listen, show empathy, and adjust so that their former status as a happy couple could safely and peacefully morph into a happy family. Readers familiar with Dunn's honest and humorous writing will appreciate the behind-the-scenes look at her own semi-messy family life, and those who need guidance through the rough spots can glean advice while being entertained—all without spending lots of money on couples’ therapy.
A highly readable account of how solid research and personal testing of self-help techniques saved a couple's marriage after the birth of their child.Pub Date: March 21, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-316-26710-6
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: Jan. 17, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2017
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
The author's youthfulness helps to assure the inevitable comparison with the Anne Frank diary although over and above the...
Elie Wiesel spent his early years in a small Transylvanian town as one of four children.
He was the only one of the family to survive what Francois Maurois, in his introduction, calls the "human holocaust" of the persecution of the Jews, which began with the restrictions, the singularization of the yellow star, the enclosure within the ghetto, and went on to the mass deportations to the ovens of Auschwitz and Buchenwald. There are unforgettable and horrifying scenes here in this spare and sombre memoir of this experience of the hanging of a child, of his first farewell with his father who leaves him an inheritance of a knife and a spoon, and of his last goodbye at Buchenwald his father's corpse is already cold let alone the long months of survival under unconscionable conditions.
Pub Date: Jan. 16, 2006
ISBN: 0374500010
Page Count: 120
Publisher: Hill & Wang
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2006
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