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
When Kaysen was 18, in 1967, she was admitted to McLean Psychiatric Hospital outside Boston, where she would spend the next 18 months. Now, 25 years and two novels (Far Afield, 1990; Asa, As I Knew Him, 1987) later, she has come to terms with the experience- -as detailed in this searing account. First there was the suicide attempt, a halfhearted one because Kaysen made a phone call before popping the 50 aspirin, leaving enough time to pump out her stomach. The next year it was McLean, which she entered after one session with a bullying doctor, a total stranger. Still, she signed herself in: ``Reality was getting too dense...all my integrity seemed to lie in saying No.'' In the series of snapshots that follows, Kaysen writes as lucidly about the dark jumble inside her head as she does about the hospital routines, the staff, the patients. Her stay didn't coincide with those of various celebrities (Ray Charles, Sylvia Plath, Robert Lowell), but we are not likely to forget Susan, ``thin and yellow,'' who wrapped everything in sight in toilet paper, or Daisy, whose passions were laxatives and chicken. The staff is equally memorable: ``Our keepers. As for finders—well, we had to be our own finders.'' There was no way the therapists—those dispensers of dope (Thorazine, Stelazine, Mellaril, Librium, Valium)—might improve the patients' conditions: Recovery was in the lap of the gods (``I got better and Daisy didn't and I can't explain why''). When, all these years later, Kaysen reads her diagnosis (``Borderline Personality''), it means nothing when set alongside her descriptions of the ``parallel universe'' of the insane. It's an easy universe to enter, she assures us. We believe her. Every word counts in this brave, funny, moving reconstruction. For Kaysen, writing well has been the best revenge.
Pub Date: June 1, 1993
ISBN: 0-679-42366-4
Page Count: 176
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 1993
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Skilled and graceful exploration of the soul of an astonishing human being.
Full-immersion journalist Kidder (Home Town, 1999, etc.) tries valiantly to keep up with a front-line, muddy-and-bloody general in the war against infectious disease in Haiti and elsewhere.
The author occasionally confesses to weariness in this gripping account—and why not? Paul Farmer, who has an M.D. and a Ph.D. from Harvard, appears to be almost preternaturally intelligent, productive, energetic, and devoted to his causes. So trotting alongside him up Haitian hills, through international airports and Siberian prisons and Cuban clinics, may be beyond the capacity of a mere mortal. Kidder begins with a swift account of his first meeting with Farmer in Haiti while working on a story about American soldiers, then describes his initial visit to the doctor’s clinic, where the journalist felt he’d “encountered a miracle.” Employing guile, grit, grins, and gifts from generous donors (especially Boston contractor Tom White), Farmer has created an oasis in Haiti where TB and AIDS meet their Waterloos. The doctor has an astonishing rapport with his patients and often travels by foot for hours over difficult terrain to treat them in their dwellings (“houses” would be far too grand a word). Kidder pauses to fill in Farmer’s amazing biography: his childhood in an eccentric family sounds like something from The Mosquito Coast; a love affair with Roald Dahl’s daughter ended amicably; his marriage to a Haitian anthropologist produced a daughter whom he sees infrequently thanks to his frenetic schedule. While studying at Duke and Harvard, Kidder writes, Farmer became obsessed with public health issues; even before he’d finished his degrees he was spending much of his time in Haiti establishing the clinic that would give him both immense personal satisfaction and unsurpassed credibility in the medical worlds he hopes to influence.
Skilled and graceful exploration of the soul of an astonishing human being.Pub Date: Sept. 16, 2003
ISBN: 0-375-50616-0
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2003
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