A bit fragmented but may interest twins or those curious about Michael Rockefeller.
Michael Rockefeller’s twin sister describes his death and her healing.
In late 1961, Michael Rockefeller disappeared off the coast of New Guinea. Michael’s father, then Gov. Nelson Rockefeller, and his twin sister, Mary (now Morgan) Rockefeller, joined the search, but he was never found. Two years later, Michael was pronounced legally dead by drowning, but it took decades longer for Rockefeller to accept and grieve her twin’s death. In four roughly chronological parts of her memoir (a reprinted version of a 2012 title), Rockefeller recounts the stages of her “healing journey.” The first two parts, the most cohesive and compelling, describe the events after Michael’s disappearance: Rockefeller’s “numb detachment” from search efforts, her father’s new marriage and, perhaps most tellingly, her mother’s refusal to cry—or to let her cry—over their loss. In this stoic environment, “I closed the door on my grief,” she writes. As good memoirists should, Rockefeller steps beyond herself to raise larger issues: how the women’s movement of the ’60s and ’70s affected her isolation and healing; how psychologists dismissed the power of twinship; whether Rockefeller family dynamics accentuated, even defined, the author’s grief. The third section of the book departs from this style to focus on several days in 1988 when Rockefeller attended a wilderness healing retreat. The intense introspection of these chapters, which include long passages of Rockefeller’s dreams and visions, might frustrate readers intrigued by broader themes in the earlier chapters. Nonetheless, details about how meditation and days alone in nature helped her to finally, symbolically, lay Michael to rest may provide guidance to readers struggling with loss. In the final section, Rockefeller shifts back to more standard memoir style, albeit mixed with psychological theory. She explains the unique qualities of twin bonds and the workings of subconscious imagery, which she now uses in her psychotherapy practice for twinless twins. These last chapters bring welcome (if not perfect) resolution to the author’s journey—and add a touch of self-help for readers still finding their ways.
A bit fragmented but may interest twins or those curious about Michael Rockefeller.Pub Date: April 29, 2014
ISBN: 978-1497652088
Page Count: 236
Publisher: Open Road Media
Review Posted Online: May 2, 2014
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
The heartbreaking story of an emotionally battered child delivered with captivating candor and grace.
The former iCarly star reflects on her difficult childhood.
In her debut memoir, titled after her 2020 one-woman show, singer and actor McCurdy (b. 1992) reveals the raw details of what she describes as years of emotional abuse at the hands of her demanding, emotionally unstable stage mom, Debra. Born in Los Angeles, the author, along with three older brothers, grew up in a home controlled by her mother. When McCurdy was 3, her mother was diagnosed with breast cancer. Though she initially survived, the disease’s recurrence would ultimately take her life when the author was 21. McCurdy candidly reconstructs those in-between years, showing how “my mom emotionally, mentally, and physically abused me in ways that will forever impact me.” Insistent on molding her only daughter into “Mommy’s little actress,” Debra shuffled her to auditions beginning at age 6. As she matured and starting booking acting gigs, McCurdy remained “desperate to impress Mom,” while Debra became increasingly obsessive about her daughter’s physical appearance. She tinted her daughter’s eyelashes, whitened her teeth, enforced a tightly monitored regimen of “calorie restriction,” and performed regular genital exams on her as a teenager. Eventually, the author grew understandably resentful and tried to distance herself from her mother. As a young celebrity, however, McCurdy became vulnerable to eating disorders, alcohol addiction, self-loathing, and unstable relationships. Throughout the book, she honestly portrays Debra’s cruel perfectionist personality and abusive behavior patterns, showing a woman who could get enraged by everything from crooked eyeliner to spilled milk. At the same time, McCurdy exhibits compassion for her deeply flawed mother. Late in the book, she shares a crushing secret her father revealed to her as an adult. While McCurdy didn’t emerge from her childhood unscathed, she’s managed to spin her harrowing experience into a sold-out stage act and achieve a form of catharsis that puts her mind, body, and acting career at peace.
The heartbreaking story of an emotionally battered child delivered with captivating candor and grace.Pub Date: Aug. 9, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-982185-82-4
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: May 30, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2022
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
This moving, potent testament might have been titled “Black Lives Matter.” Or: “An American Tragedy.”
The powerful story of a father’s past and a son’s future.
Atlantic senior writer Coates (The Beautiful Struggle: A Father, Two Sons, and an Unlikely Road to Manhood, 2008) offers this eloquent memoir as a letter to his teenage son, bearing witness to his own experiences and conveying passionate hopes for his son’s life. “I am wounded,” he writes. “I am marked by old codes, which shielded me in one world and then chained me in the next.” Coates grew up in the tough neighborhood of West Baltimore, beaten into obedience by his father. “I was a capable boy, intelligent and well-liked,” he remembers, “but powerfully afraid.” His life changed dramatically at Howard University, where his father taught and from which several siblings graduated. Howard, he writes, “had always been one of the most critical gathering posts for black people.” He calls it The Mecca, and its faculty and his fellow students expanded his horizons, helping him to understand “that the black world was its own thing, more than a photo-negative of the people who believe they are white.” Coates refers repeatedly to whites’ insistence on their exclusive racial identity; he realizes now “that nothing so essentialist as race” divides people, but rather “the actual injury done by people intent on naming us, intent on believing that what they have named matters more than anything we could ever actually do.” After he married, the author’s world widened again in New York, and later in Paris, where he finally felt extricated from white America’s exploitative, consumerist dreams. He came to understand that “race” does not fully explain “the breach between the world and me,” yet race exerts a crucial force, and young blacks like his son are vulnerable and endangered by “majoritarian bandits.” Coates desperately wants his son to be able to live “apart from fear—even apart from me.”
This moving, potent testament might have been titled “Black Lives Matter.” Or: “An American Tragedy.”Pub Date: July 8, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-8129-9354-7
Page Count: 176
Publisher: Spiegel & Grau
Review Posted Online: May 5, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2015
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
© Copyright 2024 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.
bookshelf
