The readable, touching story of one family’s struggle and ultimate triumph.
A father gives an honest account of raising his severely disabled son and the tolls it took on his family.
Holton’s heartfelt debut memoir details the unending stress of raising a physically and emotionally disabled son. His young wife, Sandra, had difficulty conceiving their first child, including an excruciatingly prolonged labor. The doctors used a fetal heart monitor, a device so new at the time that they had to consult the owner’s manual. What the parents didn’t know but the heart monitor showed was that the baby had a series of strokes during labor and, following a caesarian section, had to be revived at birth. The unaware parents only gradually realized something was wrong with their child. Young Johnny was diagnosed with cerebral palsy and epilepsy, and his early life was a nightmare of seizures and a parade of specialists and tests. As Johnny got older, his angry, violent rages became more frequent, brought on by the “monster within his head.” He also developed a charming but devious personality, escaping from babysitters, hospitals, and even a locked psych ward. Johnny required constant vigilance. His parents rarely got time off and only took one vacation in 22 years; “everything concerning Johnny fell on our shoulders and ours alone.” They also filed lawsuits, clashed with the school system, and resisted suggestions to lock Johnny up permanently. But he only got worse, with “bouts of rage and insanity that had us living on edge constantly.” Just when there seemed to be no hope, a team of doctors proposed a radical “fix”: an amazing feat of neurosurgery that completely transformed their lives. Despite a few typographical miscues—“[Sandra] wouldn’t even take an aspirin during the pregnancy…she didn’t want to harm the baby…why this?”—Holton recounts his memories in a conversational tone, broken up into short anecdotes and frequently lightened by goofy jokes, never letting himself get weighed down by self-pity or anger. While giving comfort and hope to those in similar situations, Holton’s story also provides needed insight into what life is really like for families with disabled children.
The readable, touching story of one family’s struggle and ultimate triumph.Pub Date: July 30, 2013
ISBN: 978-1491067246
Page Count: 280
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: April 8, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2015
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A vivid sequel that strains credulity.
Fremont (After Long Silence, 1999) continues—and alters—her story of how memories of the Holocaust affected her family.
At the age of 44, the author learned that her father had disowned her, declaring her “predeceased”—or dead in his eyes—in his will. It was his final insult: Her parents had stopped speaking to her after she’d published After Long Silence, which exposed them as Jewish Holocaust survivors who had posed as Catholics in Europe and America in order to hide multilayered secrets. Here, Fremont delves further into her tortured family dynamics and shows how the rift developed. One thread centers on her life after her harrowing childhood: her education at Wellesley and Boston University, the loss of her virginity to a college boyfriend before accepting her lesbianism, her stint with the Peace Corps in Lesotho, and her decades of work as a lawyer in Boston. Another strand involves her fraught relationship with her sister, Lara, and how their difficulties relate to their father, a doctor embittered after years in the Siberian gulag; and their mother, deeply enmeshed with her own sister, Zosia, who had married an Italian count and stayed in Rome to raise a child. Fremont tells these stories with novelistic flair, ending with a surprising theory about why her parents hid their Judaism. Yet she often appears insensitive to the serious problems she says Lara once faced, including suicidal depression. “The whole point of suicide, I thought, was to succeed at it,” she writes. “My sister’s completion rate was pathetic.” Key facts also differ from those in her earlier work. After Long Silence says, for example, that the author grew up “in a small city in the Midwest” while she writes here that she grew up in “upstate New York,” changes Fremont says she made for “consistency” in the new book but that muddy its narrative waters. The discrepancies may not bother readers seeking psychological insights rather than factual accuracy, but others will wonder if this book should have been labeled a fictionalized autobiography rather than a memoir.
A vivid sequel that strains credulity.Pub Date: Feb. 11, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-982113-60-5
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Gallery Books/Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Oct. 20, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2019
BOOK REVIEW
Solid, practical advice for women on how to properly nurture their sons.
How women can raise boys to become good men.
More than ever, women are under pressure to be "everything to everyone," writes Meeker (The 10 Habits of Happy Mothers: Reclaiming Our Passion, Purpose, and Sanity, 2010, etc.), as "working women feel that they must perform equally well both in the office and in caring for their home, husband, and children." The dynamics of raising boys is especially difficult for women due to the gender difference and the fact that women tend to be nurturing and helpful while allowing their sons to evolve into men in a constantly shifting masculine paradigm. Through research and interviews from her own practice, Meeker gives women the necessary tools to understand that perfection is not a realistic goal but that doing the best one can will ensure good results. Equally useful to single mothers and women with husbands is the advice that sons need to know they are loved from a very young age, as this builds a foundation of confidence in a child, a base that allows a boy to gradually move away from his mother as he interacts with male peers and elders. A boy's home life must be solid: a safe haven to return to regardless of his age, a place where his thoughts and feelings are respected and where he can express his hopes and dreams without fear of judgment. Meeker recommends introducing boys to religion, prayer and the unconditional love that comes from having a strong faith to boost self-confidence. She also skillfully navigates the world of sex—from a boy's first body awareness to the powerful effects of pornography and sexual messages embedded in social media, video games and news media, to his interactions in the world of girls and women. A mother's imprint on her son is powerful right from birth and remains so throughout her son's life. Meeker's advice gives women the tools to navigate these often rocky waters with confidence.
Solid, practical advice for women on how to properly nurture their sons.Pub Date: April 8, 2014
ISBN: 978-0-345-51809-5
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: Feb. 18, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2014
BOOK REVIEW
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