A remembrance that effectively captures the profound love between a mother and daughter.
Munn’s debut memoir tells of her own journey of self-discovery after learning of a parent’s terminal illness.
In 2003, the author was in the middle of a divorce when she suffered another severe blow—her mother was diagnosed with cancer. Rather than give in to grief, she embarked on what she calls a “heart-opening journey”—one that she deftly and intensely recounts in this memoir. The book might have benefited from providing a little more background, as Munn barely touches upon her childhood and the causes of her marital collapse before plunging into her mother’s chilling diagnosis: “I let out a gut-wrenching cry, as I thought, No, God, I am really not ready for this,” she recalls. Soon, however, she expresses gratitude for being able to “start giving more to Mom from my heart.” Throughout this book, the author skillfully describes the nuances of her visits with her mother as well as the deepening of their relationship. At one point, for example, her mother shocked her by saying “I am cured!” She was only in temporary remission, but the author shares her insight that it was more important to be supportive than judgmental: “I chose to focus on the moment and celebrate Mom where she was.” They also chose a purple butterfly as their “symbol of connection that would last forever, across different realms.” Munn’s invocations of a higher power may not appeal to some secular readers, but others will find genuine drama in her account of a deathbed visit, during which the author says that she heard her mother’s soul say, “I wonder if I am worthy of receiving God.” In the end, Munn analogizes her journey to that of a caterpillar transitioning to a butterfly: having “let go of all the layers of my cocoon and set them free, I ... now live an authentic life with my heart wide open.”
A remembrance that effectively captures the profound love between a mother and daughter.Pub Date: July 18, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-63152-230-7
Page Count: 280
Publisher: She Writes Press
Review Posted Online: April 25, 2017
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
The acclaimed author of My Own Country (1996) turns his gaze inward to a pair of crises that hit even closer to home than the AIDS epidemic of which he wrote previously. Verghese took a teaching position at Texas Tech’s medical school, and it’s his arrival in the unfamiliar city of El Paso that triggers the events of his second book (parts of which appeared in the New Yorker). His marriage, already on the rocks in My Own Country, has collapsed utterly and the couple agree to a separation. In a new job in a new city, he finds himself more alone than he has ever been. But he becomes acquainted with a charming fourth-year student on his rotation, David, a former professional tennis player from Australia. Verghese, an ardent amateur himself, begins to play regularly with David and the two become close friends, indeed deeply dependent on each other. Gradually, the younger man begins to confide in his teacher and friend. David has a secret, known to most of the other students and staff at the teaching hospital but not to the recently arrived Verghese; he is a recovering drug addict whose presence at Tech is only possible if he maintains a rigorous schedule of AA meetings and urine tests. When David relapses and his life begins to spiral out of control, Verghese finds himself drawn into the young man’s troubles. As in his previous book, Verghese distinguishes himself by virtue not only of tremendous writing skill—he has a talented diagnostician’s observant eye and a gift for description—but also by his great humanity and humility. Verghese manages to recount the story of the failure of his marriage without recriminations and with a remarkable evenhandedness. Likewise, he tells David’s story honestly and movingly. Although it runs down a little in the last 50 pages or so, this is a compulsively readable and painful book, a work of compassion and intelligence.
Pub Date: Sept. 1, 1998
ISBN: 0-06-017405-6
Page Count: 400
Publisher: HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 1998
Unsentimental nature writing that sheds as much light on humans as on eels.
An account of the mysterious life of eels that also serves as a meditation on consciousness, faith, time, light and darkness, and life and death.
In addition to an intriguing natural history, Swedish journalist Svensson includes a highly personal account of his relationship with his father. The author alternates eel-focused chapters with those about his father, a man obsessed with fishing for this elusive creature. “I can’t recall us ever talking about anything other than eels and how to best catch them, down there by the stream,” he writes. “I can’t remember us speaking at all….Because we were in…a place whose nature was best enjoyed in silence.” Throughout, Svensson, whose beat is not biology but art and culture, fills his account with people: Aristotle, who thought eels emerged live from mud, “like a slithering, enigmatic miracle”; Freud, who as a teenage biologist spent months in Trieste, Italy, peering through a microscope searching vainly for eel testes; Johannes Schmidt, who for two decades tracked thousands of eels, looking for their breeding grounds. After recounting the details of the eel life cycle, the author turns to the eel in literature—e.g., in the Bible, Rachel Carson’s Under the Sea Wind, and Günter Grass’ The Tin Drum—and history. He notes that the Puritans would likely not have survived without eels, and he explores Sweden’s “eel coast” (what it once was and how it has changed), how eel fishing became embroiled in the Northern Irish conflict, and the importance of eel fishing to the Basque separatist movement. The apparent return to life of a dead eel leads Svensson to a consideration of faith and the inherent message of miracles. He warns that if we are to save this fascinating creature from extinction, we must continue to study it. His book is a highly readable place to begin learning.
Unsentimental nature writing that sheds as much light on humans as on eels.Pub Date: May 5, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-06-296881-4
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Ecco/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Feb. 29, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2020
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