A painful but beautifully conveyed tale of addiction and a mother’s commitment to a floundering child.
A writer recounts the anguishing trial of her daughter’s heroin abuse.
Debut author Alpert took Crystal in when she was 16 years old—she was given up at birth, and was struggling to get along with her adoptive parents. She was a troubled teenager, but prospered in a new environment—she finished high school at the top of her class and graduated from college. But she began using heroin—a fact revealed to the author by Crystal’s boyfriend, Jim—a practice that quickly snowballed into an ungovernable addiction. Alpert and Jim were able to coax Crystal into a detox program and then rehab. She seemed to be on the path to recovery and was infused with a sense of purpose from motherhood—she gave birth to a daughter, Sage. But Crystal’s newfound stability proved fleeting, and she spiraled again into self-destructive addiction and finally homelessness. Alpert movingly chronicles her fraught relationship with Crystal, including the author’s repeated attempts to get her clean and, in the process, to protect Sage. Alpert candidly discusses the hard decisions she had to make as a mother—at one point, she sent, as a temporary measure in advance of another shot at detox, money to Jim to purchase small amounts of heroin for Crystal. Later, she would deny Crystal bail money when she was arrested, hoping her incarceration was an opportunity to start anew. After not seeing her daughter for years, the author then discovered she was on CNN, the subject of a story profiling heroin addicts—Crystal was both homeless and pregnant. Alpert’s account is filled with candidly conveyed heartache, an especially poignant tale because, despite her challenges, she never regretted the decision to introduce Crystal into her life. The author stirringly details her own struggle to come to grips with a persistent feeling of helplessness: “Believing I had control of any kind was giving myself way too much credit. It was always Crystal’s decision. I had not put the needle in her arm, and I would not be the one to take it out.”
A painful but beautifully conveyed tale of addiction and a mother’s commitment to a floundering child.Pub Date: April 25, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-948181-32-7
Page Count: 214
Publisher: Hybrid Global Publishing
Review Posted Online: July 9, 2019
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
This is not the Nutcracker sweet, as passed on by Tchaikovsky and Marius Petipa. No, this is the original Hoffmann tale of 1816, in which the froth of Christmas revelry occasionally parts to let the dark underside of childhood fantasies and fears peek through. The boundaries between dream and reality fade, just as Godfather Drosselmeier, the Nutcracker's creator, is seen as alternately sinister and jolly. And Italian artist Roberto Innocenti gives an errily realistic air to Marie's dreams, in richly detailed illustrations touched by a mysterious light. A beautiful version of this classic tale, which will captivate adults and children alike. (Nutcracker; $35.00; Oct. 28, 1996; 136 pp.; 0-15-100227-4)
Pub Date: Oct. 28, 1996
ISBN: 0-15-100227-4
Page Count: 136
Publisher: Harcourt
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 1996
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
An extravaganza in Bemelmans' inimitable vein, but written almost dead pan, with sly, amusing, sometimes biting undertones, breaking through. For Bemelmans was "the man who came to cocktails". And his hostess was Lady Mendl (Elsie de Wolfe), arbiter of American decorating taste over a generation. Lady Mendl was an incredible person,- self-made in proper American tradition on the one hand, for she had been haunted by the poverty of her childhood, and the years of struggle up from its ugliness,- until she became synonymous with the exotic, exquisite, worshipper at beauty's whrine. Bemelmans draws a portrait in extremes, through apt descriptions, through hilarious anecdote, through surprisingly sympathetic and understanding bits of appreciation. The scene shifts from Hollywood to the home she loved the best in Versailles. One meets in passing a vast roster of famous figures of the international and artistic set. And always one feels Bemelmans, slightly offstage, observing, recording, commenting, illustrated.
Pub Date: Feb. 23, 1955
ISBN: 0670717797
Page Count: -
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: Oct. 25, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 1955
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