A mother describes her son’s descent into drugs, crime, and prison.
In this debut book, the author tells readers that the story is true, but the names of people and some places have been changed to protect the privacy of the involved parties. Grodzinsky employs a narrator, named Julie Jamison, who recounts her soul-deadening experiences with her son. Adopted at 6 weeks old, Michael acts up in school after Julie and her husband divorce. She remarries, but Michael fights with his stepbrothers, drinks, indulges in drugs, and steals. As a teen, he’s shot and hospitalized. He later pulls a knife on his stepfather, ends up in juvenile hall, and receives a diagnosis of “conduct disorder.” Skinheads become his new family, although he also impregnates and marries a couple of women, who hastily leave with their babies. Busted for dealing drugs in California, Michael’s sentenced to rehab and arrested again, this time in Las Vegas, for check forging. He lands in prison, enduring hardships and joining the Aryan Warriors for protection, while his mother deals with the petty rules the guards impose on visitors, who feel like inmates. After he’s paroled, Michael lands a job and buys a house. But he’s busted again for criminal activities with the Warriors, sentenced to 12-plus years in prison, and moved around the country, making family visits difficult. As her son turns 40, Julie learns of a great-granddaughter she never knew about. Although many of the ugly facts of prison life should be familiar to readers, this book provides a stirring personal account of the frustrations of dealing with a disturbed son and a system where recidivism rates run 70 to 80 percent. It’s impossible to say whether nature or nurture lies at the root of Michael’s troubles, but the author points out that privatization of prisons is a major cause of the facilities’ failures. Grodzinsky doesn’t delve into these issues too deeply. What comes through clearly is her narrator’s love, guilt, frustration, and hopelessness in the face of her son’s intractable problems and a corrupt, sick network unable to assist him. As the author notes, it makes no sense to house a man in prison for $15,000 to $60,000 a year and then spend “almost nothing” to help him adapt and survive upon release.
A tragic and moving story of a dysfunctional son and society’s inability to offer aid.
Pub Date: May 7, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-5116-8214-5
Page Count: 158
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: July 3, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2016
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
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
Some of Avant’s mantras are overstated, but her book is magnanimous, inspiring, and relentlessly optimistic.
Memories and life lessons inspired by the author’s mother, who was murdered in 2021.
“Neither my mother nor I knew that her last text to me would be the words ‘Think you’ll be happy,’ ” Avant writes, "but it is fitting that she left me with a mantra for resiliency.” The author, a filmmaker and former U.S. Ambassador to the Bahamas, begins her first book on the night she learned her mother, Jacqueline Avant, had been fatally shot during a home invasion. “One of my first thoughts,” she writes, “was, ‘Oh God, please don’t let me hate this man. Give me the strength not to hate him.’ ” Daughter of Clarence Avant, known as the “Black Godfather” due to his work as a pioneering music executive, the author describes growing up “in a house that had a revolving door of famous people,” from Ella Fitzgerald to Muhammad Ali. “I don’t take for granted anything I have achieved in my life as a Black American woman,” writes Avant. “And I recognize my unique upbringing…..I was taught to honor our past and pay forward our fruits.” The book, which is occasionally repetitive, includes tributes to her mother from figures like Oprah Winfrey and Bill Clinton, but the narrative core is the author’s direct, faith-based, unwaveringly positive messages to readers—e.g., “I don’t want to carry the sadness and anger I have toward the man who did this to my mother…so I’m worshiping God amid the worst storm imaginable”; "Success and feeling good are contagious. I’m all about positive contagious vibrations!” Avant frequently quotes Bible verses, and the bulk of the text reflects the spirit of her daily prayer “that everything is in divine order.” Imploring readers to practice proactive behavior, she writes, “We have to always find the blessing, to be the blessing.”
Some of Avant’s mantras are overstated, but her book is magnanimous, inspiring, and relentlessly optimistic.Pub Date: Oct. 17, 2023
ISBN: 9780063304413
Page Count: 288
Publisher: HarperOne
Review Posted Online: Aug. 17, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2023
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