Graceful snapshots of a life that lyrically coalesce into expressive declarations of identity and intimacy.
An unconventional literary self-portrait examining the relationships that shaped a writer’s identity.
Essayist Dieterich (thxthxthx: Thank Goodness for Everything, 2011) fully embraces the art of introspection in this unique memoir. Her prose, dispatched in pagelong ruminations, establishes thought-provoking connections among the multifaceted dynamics of twinning, fetal “vanishing twin syndrome,” and the author’s physical attractions. As a young ballet student, Dieterich watched herself on walls of mirrors, drawing close to fellow classmate Giselle in third grade. As teenagers, however, she was abruptly abandoned after Giselle acquired a boyfriend, lost her virginity, and broke the “comforting symmetry that had always made our friendship seem predestined.” The author admits to harboring a “terror of being alone,” so pursuing attachments she wasn’t entirely certain would prove successful came easily. She chronicles intense emotional connections to female classmates throughout her college years, just one of several forks “in the road on my sexual map.” The author eventually settled into a rhythm with artist and architect Eric, with whom she dashed across the country to cultivate a marriage. As the couple slowly merged into what Dieterich deemed to be a single synergistic organism, the arrangement slowly regressed beneath the weight of her desire for varietal stimulation and discontent with the sameness of a consistent partner. An open arrangement allowed her to probe her emerging queer sexuality further with women, and, through the revolving door of nonmonogamy, the author escaped into the arms of Elena, a filmmaker who mirrored her passion. Dieterich artfully compares her former lovers of both sexes to the sensation of standing too close to a mirror, unable to focus on anything within the blur. In these poetically written episodes, the author ponders the nature of love, attraction, and identity through literature, pop culture, psychology, femininity, and the delicate nuances of being a “beautiful and controlled” ballerina.
Graceful snapshots of a life that lyrically coalesce into expressive declarations of identity and intimacy.Pub Date: Sept. 4, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-59376-291-9
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Soft Skull Press
Review Posted Online: June 17, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2018
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
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
© Copyright 2025 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
