by Linda Atwell ‧ RELEASE DATE: Sept. 26, 2017
A brutally honest, affecting memoir of family resilience.
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In her debut memoir, former entrepreneur and catastrophic claims adjuster Atwell chronicles the challenges of helping an adult child with disabilities transition to independent living.
Atwell and her husband, John, were celebrating the independence of (and their independence from) Lindsey—who had recently graduated from high school, was employed, and lived in a cottage in their backyard—when Lindsey breathlessly announced that she’d had sex with Gabe, a developmentally disabled friend. Much to their relief, the encounter did not result in pregnancy, and Lindsey elected to undergo a tubal ligation, a decision that both relieved and disturbed Atwell, who mourned the grandchildren she would never have. The next indication of trouble came when Lindsey accepted a second job at a pizzeria, which seemed never to have any customers, owned by Emmett, a twice-divorced former pastor whom Atwell found creepy. Lindsey quit her full-time job and moved in with Emmett. Lindsey grew increasingly distant from her family, both geographically and emotionally. Emmett insisted the Atwells were prejudiced against him and ignored their concerns about his controlling behavior and lies about his past. After several years, frequent moves, and a period of homelessness, Lindsey finally returned to her parents. Eventually, Lindsey achieved a new level of independence, and she and Atwell reached a hard-earned truce in their strained relationship. Atwell frankly addresses the difficulties inherent in dealing with the sexuality of a special needs child. Told in flashbacks, she doesn’t focus on her journey to diagnosis, but begins when Lindsey is already an adult, illustrating that acceptance of a child’s special needs is an ongoing process. Some aspects of the account may make the reader cringe, such as Lindsey’s attempts at seduction. Lindsey’s story drives home the fact that legal adulthood begins at 18, regardless of maturity level, which hampered the Atwells’ efforts to rescue her from her bad relationship. Atwell’s evocative descriptions provide added depth to the characters, particularly Lindsey, whose voice emanates from the pages. The text is occasionally repetitive, but it doesn’t detract from the overall quality of the writing.
A brutally honest, affecting memoir of family resilience.Pub Date: Sept. 26, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-63152-280-2
Page Count: 325
Publisher: She Writes Press
Review Posted Online: Aug. 1, 2017
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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by Chris Gardner with Quincy Troupe ‧ RELEASE DATE: June 1, 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
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by Jon Krakauer ‧ RELEASE DATE: Jan. 1, 1996
A wonderful page-turner written with humility, immediacy, and great style. Nothing came cheap and easy to McCandless, nor...
The excruciating story of a young man on a quest for knowledge and experience, a search that eventually cooked his goose, told with the flair of a seasoned investigative reporter by Outside magazine contributing editor Krakauer (Eiger Dreams, 1990).
Chris McCandless loved the road, the unadorned life, the Tolstoyan call to asceticism. After graduating college, he took off on another of his long destinationless journeys, this time cutting all contact with his family and changing his name to Alex Supertramp. He was a gent of strong opinions, and he shared them with those he met: "You must lose your inclination for monotonous security and adopt a helter-skelter style of life''; "be nomadic.'' Ultimately, in 1992, his terms got him into mortal trouble when he ran up against something—the Alaskan wild—that didn't give a hoot about Supertramp's worldview; his decomposed corpse was found 16 weeks after he entered the bush. Many people felt McCandless was just a hubris-laden jerk with a death wish (he had discarded his map before going into the wild and brought no food but a bag of rice). Krakauer thought not. Admitting an interest that bordered on obsession, he dug deep into McCandless's life. He found a willful, reckless, moody boyhood; an ugly little secret that sundered the relationship between father and son; a moral absolutism that agitated the young man's soul and drove him to extremes; but he was no more a nutcase than other pilgrims. Writing in supple, electric prose, Krakauer tries to make sense of McCandless (while scrupulously avoiding off-the-rack psychoanalysis): his risky behavior and the rites associated with it, his asceticism, his love of wide open spaces, the flights of his soul.
Pub Date: Jan. 1, 1996
ISBN: 0-679-42850-X
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Villard
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 1995
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