A unique record of what it is like to lose everything we think of as ourselves, and to painstakingly reclaim it.
After a brain injury during the delivery of her son, a woman does not recognize her husband or remember having a baby.
“When my neurologist told me that the damage from the strokes had left my brain broken and scattered, when he declared matter-of-factly in his soft, earnest tones that my recovery depended upon me putting it back together as best I could, that there was nothing more the doctors or medicine could do to heal the damage, what he didn’t mention was that some of the pieces were simply gone.” Ali sensed something wrong from the moment she got pregnant. But her doctors saw only a healthy 29-year-old dealing with the anxiety of a first pregnancy. Then, moments after delivery, she went into a coma. When she came out of it five days later, she could no longer even speak English; only the Urdu that had been her first language remained. In short, nonchronological vignettes, Ali attempts to recount what happened from a medical perspective, fill in her life to that point, and chronicle how she recovered her mind and life. She includes reflections on her relationship to her Islamic faith; in the darkest hour, her parents call India to have an imam scale a holy mountain and recite the Qur’an, believed to persuade God to give a second chance. After being released, she is “nearly as helpless as my newborn”—her mother and husband are baby Ishmael’s caregivers for months. She tries to work on an autobiographical novel she has started and, though she doesn’t recognize a word she’s written, does not give up. Though Ali doesn’t name it here, that novel was Madras on Rainy Days (2004), a PEN/Hemingway finalist. Her neurologist, noting that Ali’s is the most dramatic recovery he has ever witnessed, hypothesizes that “the repetitive process of working on a story based on my personal experience” was key. This memoir seems to continue that process. After the halting pace of her recovery, an epilogue jumps ahead five years with dramatic developments the reader is not prepared for.
A unique record of what it is like to lose everything we think of as ourselves, and to painstakingly reclaim it.Pub Date: March 4, 2025
ISBN: 9781646222612
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Catapult
Review Posted Online: Nov. 23, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2025
BOOK REVIEW
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
An intriguing but uneven family memoir and travelogue.
An author’s trip to Venice takes a distinctly Borgesian turn.
In November 2020, soccer club Venizia F.C. offered Nigerian American author Madu a writing residency as part of its plan “to turn the team into a global entity of fashion, culture, and sports.” Flying to Venice for the fellowship, he felt guilty about leaving his immigrant parents, who were shocked to learn upon moving to the U.S. years earlier that their Nigerian teaching certifications were invalid, forcing his father to work as a stocking clerk at Rite Aid to support the family. Madu’s experiences in Venice are incidental to what is primarily a story about his family, especially his strained relationship with his father, who was disappointed with many of his son’s choices. Unfortunately, the author’s seeming disinterest in Venice renders much of the narrative colorless. He says the trip across the Ponte della Libertà bridge was “magical,” but nothing he describes—the “endless water on both sides,” the nearby seagulls—is particularly remarkable. Little in the text conveys a sense of place or the unique character of his surroundings. Madu is at his best when he focuses on family dynamics and his observations that, in the largely deserted city, “I was one of the few Black people around.” He cites Borges, giving special note to the author’s “The House of Asterion,” in which the minotaur “explains his situation as a creature and as a creature within the labyrinth” of multiple mirrors. This notion leads to the Borgesian turn in the book’s second half, when, in an extended sequence, Madu imagines himself transformed into a minotaur, with “the head of a bull” and his body “larger, thicker, powerful but also cumbersome.” It’s an engaging passage, although stylistically out of keeping with much of what has come before.
An intriguing but uneven family memoir and travelogue.Pub Date: April 2, 2024
ISBN: 9781953368669
Page Count: 144
Publisher: Belt Publishing
Review Posted Online: Nov. 17, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2023
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