The humor sprinkled throughout the book seems slightly out of context with the frank discussions of Freudian theory.
Anna Freud’s fictional memoirs reflect a far-from-normal upbringing.
Blurring fact and fiction, with a dollop of shtick and long explanations of Sigmund Freud's psychosexual theory of behavior, this debut novel examines the life of Freud's youngest daughter, Anna. A loner whose mother makes little impression on her childhood, Anna spends much of her time at her prominent father’s side. By 13, she's knowledgeable about psychoanalysis and conversant with many of her father’s patients and colleagues, including Carl Jung, who attends a meeting of Freud’s Wednesday Psychological Society and attempts to psychoanalyze his host. Anna spends her formative years struggling with episodes of depression and anorexia and closely examining her own sexuality. She becomes one of her father’s analysands, takes her place on his couch and describes a recurring fantasy about a boy with golden curls who’s beaten by a man. She feels betrayed when her father treats her as a subject and publicizes her fantasy at a psychoanalytic congress. Although she ends their sessions, her attachment to her father remains strong, and she eventually returns to analysis. Freud's theories famously emphasize the role of sexual desires and repression of childhood memories. He encourages Anna to work with children, and she rises to prominence for her work as a child psychoanalyst. She also engages in a long-term relationship with Dorothy Tiffany Burlingham, the married daughter of Louis Comfort Tiffany. Coffey has created a stimulating interpretation of the Freud family through Anna’s eyes while eliciting an occasional chuckle; but sometimes she seems torn between being funny and attempting a more traditional telling of her story.
The humor sprinkled throughout the book seems slightly out of context with the frank discussions of Freudian theory.Pub Date: May 13, 2014
ISBN: 978-1-938314-42-1
Page Count: 360
Publisher: She Writes Press
Review Posted Online: April 8, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2014
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.
Sisters work together to solve a child-abandonment case.
Ellie and Julia Cates have never been close. Julia is shy and brainy; Ellie gets by on charm and looks. Their differences must be tossed aside when a traumatized young girl wanders in from the forest into their hometown in Washington. The sisters’ professional skills are put to the test. Julia is a world-renowned child psychologist who has lost her edge. She is reeling from a case that went publicly sour. Though she was cleared of all wrongdoing, Julia’s name was tarnished, forcing her to shutter her Beverly Hills practice. Ellie Barton is the local police chief in Rain Valley, who’s never faced a tougher case. This is her chance to prove she is more than just a fading homecoming queen, but a scarcity of clues and a reluctant victim make locating the girl’s parents nearly impossible. Ellie places an SOS call to her sister; she needs an expert to rehabilitate this wild-child who has been living outside of civilization for years. Confronted with her professional demons, Julia once again has the opportunity to display her talents and salvage her reputation. Hannah (The Things We Do for Love, 2004, etc.) is at her best when writing from the girl’s perspective. The feral wolf-child keeps the reader interested long after the other, transparent characters have grown tiresome. Hannah’s torturously over-written romance passages are stale, but there are surprises in store as the sisters set about unearthing Alice’s past and creating a home for her.
Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.Pub Date: March 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-345-46752-3
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2005
A strict report, worthy of sympathy.
A violent surfacing of adolescence (which has little in common with Tarkington's earlier, broadly comic, Seventeen) has a compulsive impact.
"Nobody big except me" is the dream world of Holden Caulfield and his first person story is down to the basic, drab English of the pre-collegiate. For Holden is now being bounced from fancy prep, and, after a vicious evening with hall- and roommates, heads for New York to try to keep his latest failure from his parents. He tries to have a wild evening (all he does is pay the check), is terrorized by the hotel elevator man and his on-call whore, has a date with a girl he likes—and hates, sees his 10 year old sister, Phoebe. He also visits a sympathetic English teacher after trying on a drunken session, and when he keeps his date with Phoebe, who turns up with her suitcase to join him on his flight, he heads home to a hospital siege. This is tender and true, and impossible, in its picture of the old hells of young boys, the lonesomeness and tentative attempts to be mature and secure, the awful block between youth and being grown-up, the fright and sickness that humans and their behavior cause the challenging, the dramatization of the big bang. It is a sorry little worm's view of the off-beat of adult pressure, of contemporary strictures and conformity, of sentiment….
A strict report, worthy of sympathy.Pub Date: June 15, 1951
ISBN: 0316769177
Page Count: -
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: Nov. 2, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 1951
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
APPRECIATIONS
© 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
