A compelling memoir of pain, loss, and redemption through faith.
A woman tells of getting God’s help in weathering abuse, callous parents, familial abandonment, bouts of grinding poverty, medical crises, bad marriages, and bad men in this heartfelt debut autobiography.
The author was born in Niagara Falls, New York, in 1944 to a 15-year-old unwed mother. She writes that she was sexually abused by an alcoholic stepfather at age 7, then emotionally abused by another stepfather until age 18. That year, she came home from school one day to find that her family had abruptly moved away, leaving her homeless. Reeling from that cruelty, she was soon swept off her feet by a 33-year-old truck driver who promised a home and security. The result was a loveless 16-year marriage that yielded four children, during which she says that she was beset by her husband’s alcoholism, womanizing, and drunk driving, as well as her own difficult pregnancies (including one delivery on a kitchen floor). The relationship ended in a bitter divorce. Coping with these travails drew Veltman to the church, and she writes of God answering her prayers in mysterious and traumatic ways. For example, after a 1981 car crash left her with permanent, painful spinal injuries, she then married a man who seemed a truly devoted and loving husband and father—only to experience an appalling betrayal. Heading toward her 50s, Veltman endured more bouts of destitution and homelessness, and even contemplated suicide. But she persevered, thanks to her church community, readings of Scripture, and well-timed interventions by kindly Christians, which she says were divinely inspired. There’s a lot of melodrama in this narrative of hard living and heartache, but the well-paced, engaging prose of amanuensis keeps it from growing too tearful. The themes that Veltman explores are universal and absorbing: the vulnerability of women with few options having their lives taken over by men; the never-healing psychic wounds inflicted by family strife and broken vows; and the havoc wreaked by alcohol and drugs (she vividly renders the drinking culture that surrounded her working-class family). Her description of her gradual turn toward God seems deeply felt—for example, she withdrew a malpractice lawsuit that offered financial security because of moral misgivings—and well-earned.
A compelling memoir of pain, loss, and redemption through faith.Pub Date: Sept. 13, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-5127-5490-2
Page Count: 266
Publisher: Westbow Press
Review Posted Online: Jan. 2, 2017
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
This autobiography might almost be said to supply the roots to Wright's famous novel, Native Son.
It is a grim record, disturbing, the story of how — in one boy's life — the seeds of hate and distrust and race riots were planted. Wright was born to poverty and hardship in the deep south; his father deserted his mother, and circumstances and illness drove the little family from place to place, from degradation to degradation. And always, there was the thread of fear and hate and suspicion and discrimination — of white set against black — of black set against Jew — of intolerance. Driven to deceit, to dishonesty, ambition thwarted, motives impugned, Wright struggled against the tide, put by a tiny sum to move on, finally got to Chicago, and there — still against odds — pulled himself up, acquired some education through reading, allied himself with the Communists — only to be thrust out for non-conformity — and wrote continually. The whole tragedy of a race seems dramatized in this record; it is virtually unrelieved by any vestige of human tenderness, or humor; there are no bright spots. And yet it rings true. It is an unfinished story of a problem that has still to be met.
Perhaps this will force home unpalatable facts of a submerged minority, a problem far from being faced.
Pub Date: Feb. 28, 1945
ISBN: 0061130249
Page Count: 450
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 1945
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Buffs of the Old West will enjoy Clavin’s careful research and vivid writing.
Rootin’-tootin’ history of the dry-gulchers, horn-swogglers, and outright killers who populated the Wild West’s wildest city in the late 19th century.
The stories of Wyatt Earp and company, the shootout at the O.K. Corral, and Geronimo and the Apache Wars are all well known. Clavin, who has written books on Dodge City and Wild Bill Hickok, delivers a solid narrative that usefully links significant events—making allies of white enemies, for instance, in facing down the Apache threat, rustling from Mexico, and other ethnically charged circumstances. The author is a touch revisionist, in the modern fashion, in noting that the Earps and Clantons weren’t as bloodthirsty as popular culture has made them out to be. For example, Wyatt and Bat Masterson “took the ‘peace’ in peace officer literally and knew that the way to tame the notorious town was not to outkill the bad guys but to intimidate them, sometimes with the help of a gun barrel to the skull.” Indeed, while some of the Clantons and some of the Earps died violently, most—Wyatt, Bat, Doc Holliday—died of cancer and other ailments, if only a few of old age. Clavin complicates the story by reminding readers that the Earps weren’t really the law in Tombstone and sometimes fell on the other side of the line and that the ordinary citizens of Tombstone and other famed Western venues valued order and peace and weren’t particularly keen on gunfighters and their mischief. Still, updating the old notion that the Earp myth is the American Iliad, the author is at his best when he delineates those fraught spasms of violence. “It is never a good sign for law-abiding citizens,” he writes at one high point, “to see Johnny Ringo rush into town, both him and his horse all in a lather.” Indeed not, even if Ringo wound up killing himself and law-abiding Tombstone faded into obscurity when the silver played out.
Buffs of the Old West will enjoy Clavin’s careful research and vivid writing.Pub Date: April 21, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-250-21458-4
Page Count: 400
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: Jan. 19, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2020
© Copyright 2025 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.
