An urgent, palpably emotional account of coping with extreme grief.
Wallace Stegner fellow Evans (Creative Writing/Stanford Univ.) mourns the untimely death of his wife.
The author’s wife, Katie, died horrifically at the age of 30, killed by a bear during a walk in the Carpathian Mountains near Bucharest, Romania, and the author was there to witness her death. Katie had been athletic, bright and beautiful, and she worked in public health, while her husband taught English. She and Evans had met in the Peace Corps in Bangladesh, and during their seven years together, they lived in Chicago, Miami and Bucharest. Evans recalls their brief life as a couple in flashbacks, eschewing chronology. Though he vividly recounts the circumstances of Katie’s exceptional death, this is the author’s story, a memoir of grieving and consolation, of trying to define a young widower’s public face and private essence. “I have three soft-cover notebooks in which I wrote daily accounts of my life during that year,” he writes. “The journal is a matter of will and record. I wanted to survive grief. I feared I would lose, with time, the intensity of my reactions.” Evans takes us with him through the many elements of the tragedy and aftermath: the funeral, the family relations, the therapy, the insurance settlement and the banking arrangements. Often, the heartfelt support of family and friends was insufficient to assuage the survivor’s guilt or the wrenching pain. The emotional narrative is a study in loss, a confession and a search for meaning. The year after Katie died, the writer lived in a room in the back of the house of his sister-in-law and her family in Indiana. “My time in Indiana evolves in stages: grieving widower, live-in uncle, surrogate,” he writes. “I am less often the interloper….Vulnerable and partially present, I live in small incidents of grief that bring us together.”
An urgent, palpably emotional account of coping with extreme grief.Pub Date: March 1, 2014
ISBN: 978-0-8032-4952-3
Page Count: 200
Publisher: Univ. of Nebraska
Review Posted Online: Jan. 20, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2014
BOOK REVIEW
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
This autobiography might almost be said to supply the roots to Wright's famous novel, Native Son.
It is a grim record, disturbing, the story of how — in one boy's life — the seeds of hate and distrust and race riots were planted. Wright was born to poverty and hardship in the deep south; his father deserted his mother, and circumstances and illness drove the little family from place to place, from degradation to degradation. And always, there was the thread of fear and hate and suspicion and discrimination — of white set against black — of black set against Jew — of intolerance. Driven to deceit, to dishonesty, ambition thwarted, motives impugned, Wright struggled against the tide, put by a tiny sum to move on, finally got to Chicago, and there — still against odds — pulled himself up, acquired some education through reading, allied himself with the Communists — only to be thrust out for non-conformity — and wrote continually. The whole tragedy of a race seems dramatized in this record; it is virtually unrelieved by any vestige of human tenderness, or humor; there are no bright spots. And yet it rings true. It is an unfinished story of a problem that has still to be met.
Perhaps this will force home unpalatable facts of a submerged minority, a problem far from being faced.
Pub Date: Feb. 28, 1945
ISBN: 0061130249
Page Count: 450
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 1945
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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