A remembrance with a powerful message about strength and recovery, hampered by awkward execution.
A memoir of healing from trauma and addiction from a well-known West Coast political figure.
In 2017, Davis, then the wife of former California attorney general and treasurer Bill Lockyer, was arrested on suspicion of domestic abuse; she eventually was ordered by a judge to attend 180 days of mandatory Alcoholics Anonymous meetings. She was a famous figure in local politics; she’d resigned from the Alameda County Board of Supervisors in 2012, after she revealed her struggles with addiction to alcohol and narcotics, so the arrest attracted media interest. Here, she takes to pen and paper to reclaim her story in her own words. Davis, the daughter of a renowned civil rights attorney, earned a number of accolades and held multiple offices, including president of the Santa Ana Unified School District Board of Trustees, before marrying Lockyer. Davis’ struggles with addiction became fodder for scandal-hungry local news outlets, she says, and she fell victim to media shaming. With admirable candor, she shares a story of resilience, delving into childhood and adult traumas, including a nearly fatal car accident and difficulties involving a stalker, and tells how she worked to overcome intense feelings of “shame, fear, and resentment.” Davis is an open and unwavering narrator who presents readers with explicit descriptions of sexual assault, eating disorders, suicidal ideation, and substance abuse. The work touches on issues of privacy, motherhood, injustice, and mental health, including important criticisms of how addiction is criminalized and misunderstood. However, with such a wide range of topics, the narrative can sometimes feel unfocused. It’s written in the form of letters to her sons, which is a wonderfully evocative choice, but the missives become sidetracked in winding asides. Diary entries, notes, and letters-within-letters are scattered throughout most chapters, and it can feel as if the author had momentarily forgotten that the book is intended to address her children directly. Also, in one of the memoir’s most emotionally charged moments, she includes what appear to be unattributed lyrics from a Disney-film song(“Know Who You Are” from 2016’s Moana).
A remembrance with a powerful message about strength and recovery, hampered by awkward execution.Pub Date: Dec. 8, 2021
ISBN: 978-1087994413
Page Count: 354
Publisher: Self
Review Posted Online: Nov. 29, 2021
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
A marvelously tender memoir on suicide and loss.
An essayist and novelist turns her attention to the heartache of a friend’s suicide.
Crosley’s memoir is not only a joy to read, but also a respectful and philosophical work about a colleague’s recent suicide. “All burglaries are alike, but every burglary is uninsured in its own way,” she begins, in reference to the thief who stole the jewelry from her New York apartment in 2019. Among the stolen items was her grandmother’s “green dome cocktail ring with tiers of tourmaline (think kryptonite, think dish soap).” She wrote those words two months after the burglary and “one month since the violent death of my dearest friend.” That friend was Russell Perreault, referred to only by his first name, her boss when she was a publicist at Vintage Books. Russell, who loved “cheap trinkets” from flea markets, had “the timeless charm of a movie star, the competitive edge of a Spartan,” and—one of many marvelous details—a “thatch of salt-and-pepper hair, seemingly scalped from the roof of an English country house.” Over the years, the two became more than boss and subordinate, teasing one another at work, sharing dinners, enjoying “idyllic scenes” at his Connecticut country home, “a modest farmhouse with peeling paint and fragile plumbing…the house that Windex forgot.” It was in the barn at that house that Russell took his own life. Despite the obvious difference in the severity of robbery and suicide, Crosley fashions a sharp narrative that finds commonality in the dislocation brought on by these events. The book is no hagiography—she notes harassment complaints against Russell for thoughtlessly tossed-off comments, plus critiques of the “deeply antiquated and often backward” publishing industry—but the result is a warm remembrance sure to resonate with anyone who has experienced loss.
A marvelously tender memoir on suicide and loss.Pub Date: Feb. 27, 2024
ISBN: 9780374609849
Page Count: 208
Publisher: MCD/Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: Sept. 19, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2023
PERSPECTIVES
PERSPECTIVES
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