In this memoir, a documentary filmmaker describes her dramatic journeys, both outward and inward.
In 1982, Burch (Vital Sensation Manual Unit 4: Miasms in Homeopathy, 2013, etc.) had just turned 21. Eager for adventure, she arranged a freelance assignment in Afghanistan to film the mujahedeen rebellion against Soviet invaders. There, she discovered a paradoxical peace amid war. As shells destroyed the building where, minutes before, she’d been filming, “I felt calm,” she writes. “I was pulled into a sense of timelessness, weightlessness, absoluteness.” Adventure helped numb Burch’s anxiety, much of it rooted in childhood chaos: a disastrous fire, parental conflict and divorce, and a brilliant, depressed, alcoholic mother prone to pronouncements like “If you don’t clean this couch now, I will kill myself.” (Sylvia Plath, “an icon in our home,” was her mother’s friend and college roommate.) Burch describes her bold ventures, including her return to Afghanistan, the creative vigor of living in a SoHo loft with fellow artists, and her exploration of her sexuality. She forged a better relationship with her mother and filmed in the Soviet Union during the Cold War. But Burch’s efforts were often attended by disillusion: broadcast news outlets wanted only footage that would bolster preconceived stories, and egos got in the way: “I was so caught up in the drama, I lost all perspective,” she says at one point. Realizing that achieving her external goals required an inward shift, Burch began working with a Gurdjieff spiritual guide, which brought her peace that didn’t require braving a war zone. Writing with sensitivity and vivid clarity about her evolving self, Burch is unafraid to expose times when she was naïve, self-centered, or judgmental. She’s also frank about her sexuality, describing a passionate encounter with Baba Fawad, a mujahedeen commander, as well as insecurities about weight. It’s fascinating, too, to read her insider details on documentary filmmaking in dangerous places, especially as a woman—for example, getting her period on horseback, without tampons or pads, while traveling with an all-male group of tribesmen.
An absorbing, well-written memoir by a brave adventurer who discovered her own life.Pub Date: March 1, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-77-161177-0
Page Count: 180
Publisher: Mosaic Press
Review Posted Online: Oct. 26, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2015
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Categories: GENERAL BIOGRAPHY & MEMOIR | BIOGRAPHY & MEMOIR | SURVIVORS & ADVENTURERS
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Doyle offers another lucid, inspiring chronicle of female empowerment and the rewards of self-awareness and renewal.
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More life reflections from the bestselling author on themes of societal captivity and the catharsis of personal freedom.
In her third book, Doyle (Love Warrior, 2016, etc.) begins with a life-changing event. “Four years ago,” she writes, “married to the father of my three children, I fell in love with a woman.” That woman, Abby Wambach, would become her wife. Emblematically arranged into three sections—“Caged,” “Keys,” “Freedom”—the narrative offers, among other elements, vignettes about the soulful author’s girlhood, when she was bulimic and felt like a zoo animal, a “caged girl made for wide-open skies.” She followed the path that seemed right and appropriate based on her Catholic upbringing and adolescent conditioning. After a downward spiral into “drinking, drugging, and purging,” Doyle found sobriety and the authentic self she’d been suppressing. Still, there was trouble: Straining an already troubled marriage was her husband’s infidelity, which eventually led to life-altering choices and the discovery of a love she’d never experienced before. Throughout the book, Doyle remains open and candid, whether she’s admitting to rigging a high school homecoming court election or denouncing the doting perfectionism of “cream cheese parenting,” which is about “giving your children the best of everything.” The author’s fears and concerns are often mirrored by real-world issues: gender roles and bias, white privilege, racism, and religion-fueled homophobia and hypocrisy. Some stories merely skim the surface of larger issues, but Doyle revisits them in later sections and digs deeper, using friends and familial references to personify their impact on her life, both past and present. Shorter pieces, some only a page in length, manage to effectively translate an emotional gut punch, as when Doyle’s therapist called her blooming extramarital lesbian love a “dangerous distraction.” Ultimately, the narrative is an in-depth look at a courageous woman eager to share the wealth of her experiences by embracing vulnerability and reclaiming her inner strength and resiliency.
Doyle offers another lucid, inspiring chronicle of female empowerment and the rewards of self-awareness and renewal.Pub Date: March 10, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-9848-0125-8
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Dial Books
Review Posted Online: Dec. 22, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2020
Categories: GENERAL BIOGRAPHY & MEMOIR | BIOGRAPHY & MEMOIR | SELF-HELP
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SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
An engrossing memoir as well as a lively treatise on what extraordinary grace under extraordinary pressure looks like.
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The former first lady opens up about her early life, her journey to the White House, and the eight history-making years that followed.
It’s not surprising that Obama grew up a rambunctious kid with a stubborn streak and an “I’ll show you” attitude. After all, it takes a special kind of moxie to survive being the first African-American FLOTUS—and not only survive, but thrive. For eight years, we witnessed the adversity the first family had to face, and now we get to read what it was really like growing up in a working-class family on Chicago’s South Side and ending up at the world’s most famous address. As the author amply shows, her can-do attitude was daunted at times by racism, leaving her wondering if she was good enough. Nevertheless, she persisted, graduating from Chicago’s first magnet high school, Princeton, and Harvard Law School, and pursuing careers in law and the nonprofit world. With her characteristic candor and dry wit, she recounts the story of her fateful meeting with her future husband. Once they were officially a couple, her feelings for him turned into a “toppling blast of lust, gratitude, fulfillment, wonder.” But for someone with a “natural resistance to chaos,” being the wife of an ambitious politician was no small feat, and becoming a mother along the way added another layer of complexity. Throw a presidential campaign into the mix, and even the most assured woman could begin to crack under the pressure. Later, adjusting to life in the White House was a formidable challenge for the self-described “control freak”—not to mention the difficulty of sparing their daughters the ugly side of politics and preserving their privacy as much as possible. Through it all, Obama remained determined to serve with grace and help others through initiatives like the White House garden and her campaign to fight childhood obesity. And even though she deems herself “not a political person,” she shares frank thoughts about the 2016 election.
An engrossing memoir as well as a lively treatise on what extraordinary grace under extraordinary pressure looks like.Pub Date: Nov. 13, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-5247-6313-8
Page Count: 448
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: Nov. 30, 2018
Categories: GENERAL BIOGRAPHY & MEMOIR | BIOGRAPHY & MEMOIR
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