PERMISSION TO LAND

A memoir about overcoming personal demons.

Brockmann, a high school teacher and professional artist,hints in her introduction about the lingering effects of growing up with a mother with mental health and addiction problems. However, over the course of her memoir, she says relatively little about this experience beyond an introductory chapter. She more deeply explores her relationship with her father and how he was affected by divorce—a story of rupture and eventual healing. She also talks about her own complicated but ultimately loving relationship with her dad’s new partner and stepdaughters. Most of the book, though, focuses on the good and bad aspects of her romantic relationships. After going through a difficult marriage and divorce, she recounts looking for love until she found it with an old college friend, to whom she’s currently married. She also relates how, through it all, she achieved professional success as a teacher after trying other careers and discusses her later-in-life journey to become a professional artist. This book includes much discussion about her children and motherhood, her friends, various extended family members, and the role of journaling in her life, all illustrated with photographs. Brockmann’s narrative is not always sequential, and it has a tendency to meander at times. Still, her prose style is engaging enough to keep readers’ interest. For example, Brockmann recounts, in sometimes-painful detail, her disastrous first marriage—from an uneasy courtship (“All in all, things were looking up and as long as I didn’t think too hard about our relationship, I was happy”) through divorce proceedings (“Sam admitted to me while we were in the process of getting our divorce…that each time he told me he understood and agreed with me was a lie”)—speculating all the while about why it took so long for her to decide to leave.

A somewhat unfocused but often worthwhile read.