A strong, important account of self-preservation.
A debut memoir examines narcissism and women’s rights.
McKneally grew up in New York state during the 1940s and ’50s, the eldest of a large Roman Catholic family. She opens her book with a line from her father: “No daughter of mine is going to college!” The author does attend college, however, with her father’s signature on the application. This dynamic repeats many times: her father and then her husband, Dan, telling her she can’t study, work, parent—do anything—and McKneally proving them wrong. She met Dan in college. He drank too much and survived cancer but was also a rising star in the business world. She believed that “God had intended” them to be together. Signs of Dan’s controlling personality surfaced early. He insisted she quit her job, move to Chicago (his hometown), and prepare to have 10 children. When Dan was invited to the Aspen Institute, McKneally followed as “wife of.” Although not officially allowed to speak in sessions, she did indeed provide valuable input. The couple eventually had five children, and the author was offered jobs, but Dan refused to let her work: “What could you ever do?” Dan became physically abusive at home, and McKneally descended deep into depression. In therapy, she realized Dan was the problem but felt blocked from divorce by Catholicism, the return of Dan’s cancer, and his crumbling career. In the mid-’70s, she finally secured a divorce and recovered in part through art. McKneally’s voice is assured and intelligent. Even when conveying her confusion and depression, her writing is convincing. She tells her story in vivid scenes and dialogue that draw readers into her home, the Aspen Institute, the therapist’s office, and other settings. In addition, she deftly conveys the social atmosphere and expectations of the ’60s and ’70s (“ ‘Equal rights’ was merely a murmur, and feminism in my world poked its head through the status quo only to be stepped on and shoved back down”). To appeal to a broader audience, her book might have expanded on the issues of women, work, abuse, and mental illness during these decades and trimmed some personal events and details. Nonetheless, her story remains engaging and inspiring.
A strong, important account of self-preservation.Pub Date: Oct. 17, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-974286-71-3
Page Count: 302
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: Dec. 10, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2018
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
Skloot's meticulous, riveting account strikes a humanistic balance between sociological history, venerable portraiture and...
A dense, absorbing investigation into the medical community's exploitation of a dying woman and her family's struggle to salvage truth and dignity decades later.
In a well-paced, vibrant narrative, Popular Science contributor and Culture Dish blogger Skloot (Creative Writing/Univ. of Memphis) demonstrates that for every human cell put under a microscope, a complex life story is inexorably attached, to which doctors, researchers and laboratories have often been woefully insensitive and unaccountable. In 1951, Henrietta Lacks, an African-American mother of five, was diagnosed with what proved to be a fatal form of cervical cancer. At Johns Hopkins, the doctors harvested cells from her cervix without her permission and distributed them to labs around the globe, where they were multiplied and used for a diverse array of treatments. Known as HeLa cells, they became one of the world's most ubiquitous sources for medical research of everything from hormones, steroids and vitamins to gene mapping, in vitro fertilization, even the polio vaccine—all without the knowledge, must less consent, of the Lacks family. Skloot spent a decade interviewing every relative of Lacks she could find, excavating difficult memories and long-simmering outrage that had lay dormant since their loved one's sorrowful demise. Equal parts intimate biography and brutal clinical reportage, Skloot's graceful narrative adeptly navigates the wrenching Lack family recollections and the sobering, overarching realities of poverty and pre–civil-rights racism. The author's style is matched by a methodical scientific rigor and manifest expertise in the field.
Skloot's meticulous, riveting account strikes a humanistic balance between sociological history, venerable portraiture and Petri dish politics.Pub Date: Feb. 9, 2010
ISBN: 978-1-4000-5217-2
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: Dec. 22, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2010
BOOK REVIEW
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