Readers may want more explanations, but even the gaps in this well-written, engrossing book about an abusive mother are...
This debut memoir offers a glimpse into the world of horse racing and a detailed account of abuse.
Cooper grew up in suburban Maryland through the 1960s and ’70s. With six siblings, her family, particularly her mother, was very active in the community and the Roman Catholic Church. Her father was a well-known jockey; other jockeys and trainers often visited their home and Cooper’s family often traveled to attend races. On the outside, the family seemed vibrant, successful, and caring. But most of Cooper’s story occurs inside the house where her mother regularly abused all seven children, physically, verbally, and psychologically. From a young age, Cooper called her “our mother,” refusing to connect herself with this “tooth-clenching, red-faced, angry monster.” Her recollections of abuse are harrowing and infuriating. The children were beaten with a hairbrush or potato masher often because they didn’t clean the house to perfection. Cooper was beaten because her young brother fell down a hole in the woods. She was often beaten and peppered with obscenities for no apparent reason at all. Cooper asks whether readers need another book on abuse but her memoir offers more than “misery lit.” She shows how abuse from a parent is particularly insidious and damaging. Mostly, she and her siblings accepted their lot. Cooper is clear that she hated her mother and wished her dead. Yet she felt she could only fight back by leaving, which she did through marriage. Despite the title of the book, her father played a minor role and did not intervene. The author does not question this. Even as an adult with two children of her own, Cooper could not turn away her still abusive mother at Thanksgiving. And although she “often wondered” what caused her mother’s behavior, she doesn’t delve into family history or medical explanations. This reflects a time when mental illness was not discussed but it also, quite poignantly, reflects the inner turmoil of a child abused by a parent, the “battle with conflicting hatred…and longing for the nurturing aspect.”
Readers may want more explanations, but even the gaps in this well-written, engrossing book about an abusive mother are revealing.Pub Date: Oct. 7, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-5320-0440-7
Page Count: 192
Publisher: iUniverse
Review Posted Online: Jan. 31, 2017
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
The author's youthfulness helps to assure the inevitable comparison with the Anne Frank diary although over and above the...
Elie Wiesel spent his early years in a small Transylvanian town as one of four children.
He was the only one of the family to survive what Francois Maurois, in his introduction, calls the "human holocaust" of the persecution of the Jews, which began with the restrictions, the singularization of the yellow star, the enclosure within the ghetto, and went on to the mass deportations to the ovens of Auschwitz and Buchenwald. There are unforgettable and horrifying scenes here in this spare and sombre memoir of this experience of the hanging of a child, of his first farewell with his father who leaves him an inheritance of a knife and a spoon, and of his last goodbye at Buchenwald his father's corpse is already cold let alone the long months of survival under unconscionable conditions.
Pub Date: Jan. 16, 2006
ISBN: 0374500010
Page Count: 120
Publisher: Hill & Wang
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2006
Well-told and admonitory.
Young-rags-to-mature-riches memoir by broker and motivational speaker Gardner.
Born and raised in the Milwaukee ghetto, the author pulled himself up from considerable disadvantage. He was fatherless, and his adored mother wasn’t always around; once, as a child, he spied her at a family funeral accompanied by a prison guard. When beautiful, evanescent Moms was there, Chris also had to deal with Freddie “I ain’t your goddamn daddy!” Triplett, one of the meanest stepfathers in recent literature. Chris did “the dozens” with the homies, boosted a bit and in the course of youthful adventure was raped. His heroes were Miles Davis, James Brown and Muhammad Ali. Meanwhile, at the behest of Moms, he developed a fondness for reading. He joined the Navy and became a medic (preparing badass Marines for proctology), and a proficient lab technician. Moving up in San Francisco, married and then divorced, he sold medical supplies. He was recruited as a trainee at Dean Witter just around the time he became a homeless single father. All his belongings in a shopping cart, Gardner sometimes slept with his young son at the office (apparently undiscovered by the night cleaning crew). The two also frequently bedded down in a public restroom. After Gardner’s talents were finally appreciated by the firm of Bear Stearns, his American Dream became real. He got the cool duds, hot car and fine ladies so coveted from afar back in the day. He even had a meeting with Nelson Mandela. Through it all, he remained a prideful parent. His own no-daddy blues are gone now.
Well-told and admonitory.Pub Date: June 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-06-074486-3
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Amistad/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2006
© Copyright 2024 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.
bookshelf
