The Tale of Lucia Grandi; The Early Years

The Tale of Lucia Grandi; The Early Years by Susan Speranza
Brook House Press, 10/20/2012
Trade Paperback, 426

ISBN-13: 9780944657010

http://www.susansperanza.com/

Description:

When an old woman is asked to recount the story of her life, she tells an intense and poignant tale about growing up in and surviving a warring suburban family during the 1950s and ’60s.
Written as a memoir, each chapter describes a particular incident in Lucia’s life which shows the constant struggle between her parents and the perverse effect it has on her and the family. From her complicated and unwanted birth, to her witnessing a suicide at age 3, to her stint as a runaway at age 14, the story progresses to the final crisis where as a young woman, she is turned out of her house and banished from her family forever.
Told in breathtakingly beautiful prose, this is a powerful and timeless story of a dying woman’s courageous attempt to come to terms with her past and the troubled family that dominated it.

My Thoughts:

 

The Tale of Lucia Grandi by Susan Speranza begins with 110 year old Lucia sitting, waiting for something, in a retirement home.

"The world thinks me dead, but there is a lot of life left in these old bones yet. I’ve been absent from the world for a long time. But I’m here. Waiting.

Waiting.

I’m an old woman now. I spend my days looking out on a world where once I have had my play." (Location 99-103) 

 

Then a doctoral student in literature asks 110 year old Lucia to share her life's story:

"She looked down nervously, as if the reality of my static existence here at the end of my life embarrassed her. Then she cleared her throat, raised her head and looked directly at me, adopting a more formal stance. “My name is Beatrice Cummings. I’m a doctoral student in Literature at the University and my dissertation is –” she hesitated as if trying to find the right words “– my dissertation examines the oral histories of living people, autobiographies, as it were, told by older people…”

A silence fell over the room, as she turned her head and looked at me askance. She continued. “I’d like to know if you would be willing to tell me your –” and again she hesitated “– your life’s story.” (Location 138-144)

 

Lucia considers her question, and, with the tape recorder humming in front of her, she decides:

"Of one thing I was certain. Whether she was simply a graduate student or some harbinger of life’s end, I knew that so long as I spoke, I could extend this moment forever. For in this one moment I was still alive, I was still safe. And even though I was old, I wanted to stay alive. I wanted to be safe.

But what was I going to talk about?"  (Location 183-186)

 

Thus begins the tale of Lucia Grandi's life.

 

The narrative flows just like a memoir and is so well executed that I really forgot that this is a novel and not an autobiography.  Even before her birth, Lucia mere existence was a battle.

"Even then, before I knew my name or was conscious of life and the world, my battle began, my endless war with existence and its cruel, arbitrary nature. Before I knew the word no or could say or think or feel the word no, I uttered it in some silent and long forgotten language: no, I will not submit; no, I will not accept this; no, it will not be. I will not let it be... So I clung to life with a tenacity that would define me, and that awful, continuous struggle with existence would shape every aspect of my life to this end." (Location 253-257)

 

Lucia is born on June 1, 1951, the second daughter in a volatile family. Her parents, Ruth and Leonard, are at war with each other. Neither of them wants a second daughter. It is into this loveless and sometimes brutal home that Lucia is born.

"So it was on that early June morning, I fell with a thud into this unwelcoming family as if the Stork had played a perverse joke on me and on them – and dropped me into the wrong nest. Thus I began my life.

Even when Ruth and Leonard didn’t intend it, they indulged in irony. So they named me Lucia, which means light, yet it was always the darkness that informed my life. And they named their eldest child Jocelynn which means joy. Yet never was there a child so joyless or so melancholy. It wasn’t really her fault; she was merely a female version of Leonard who was serious and grim by nature." (Location 296-303)

 

This exquisitely written novel follows Lucia's life up to age 23. As she shares the events that made up her, she also relates the history of several of her family members. Lucia is a girl who learns to keep her mouth shut, but now, telling her story as an old woman, she is free to share exactly what happened and what she thought and felt as she reflects on the events in her childhood.

 

This novel is presented so convincingly as a memoir that, as I was reading I truly forgot it is fiction. It all seems so true to life. I became totally wrapped up in the reminiscing of Lucia about her childhood experiences and traumas. I grieved over what she perceives the events and various trials are teaching her. I fumed at her parents and their treatment of Lucia. The recounting of the family history and stories concerning various relatives added a reality to the narrative.

 

I was so totally wrapped up in this novel that the ending came way too abruptly for me and left me stunned. "What!" my mind screamed. "You can't just stop there, in 1974!"

Thankfully, since this is The Tale of Lucia Grandi; The Early Years there will be another novel and Lucia's story will continue. But, it still ended too unexpectedly for me. I do wish author Susan Speranza had eased me into the ending a bit more gently. Of course, the ending also brought me back to the stunned reality that this is a novel, not a memoir.

 

Bravo, Susan Speranza!  The Tale of Lucia Grandi; The Early Years totally engrossed me and left me wanting more. The writing is so articulate, the characters are so convincing, and the descriptions so real that I was transported into Lucia's life. Apparently, The Tale of Lucia Grandi; The Early Years was formerly published under the title of My Life in Dogs, the Early Years. It was a Quarter finalist in the 2012 Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award Contest and was also on the short list of finalists in the 2012 Faulkner-Wisdom Writing Competition.

 

Very Highly Recommended - even though I wanted the rest of Lucia's story right now(!).

 

Quotes:

When he realized I was there, he cried, “No, don’t look!” and scooped me up, covering my eyes protectively with his hand as he turned and left the room with me. But it was too late. I had seen, and seeing then became a habit of my life. Never again was I able to avert my eyes, or leave the veil that covers so many truths untouched. So it was on this beautiful Easter Sunday that I awakened to life and to the sad tragedy that is human existence. Location 230-233

She, therefore, lived in fear of the moment when she would be called upon to give an answer or solve a problem or use a skill that required something other than rote memory or sheer force. So she had panic attacks at a young age, and she hated anything and anyone she couldn’t control either through force or memory. It was fitting then that she hated me, for I was quite the opposite, with acute perceptions, an agile mind and a quick tongue that sliced through everyone’s illusions like a deadly sword. I flitted and ran through life; I evaporated and reappeared in front of everyone’s eyes like an insubstantial being. As hard as they tried to grasp me, I always slipped like water through everyone’s controlling hands. Location 336-341

 

I realized early on that I was simply not the child they had hoped for or even liked. There was nothing I could do, no way I could be that would make them love me. I refused to grovel. Eventually, I came to accept that they simply did not love me, and took comfort in the fact that, unlike Lynn, I was free. So I set myself against my parents and in a larger way, I suppose, I set myself against life itself. Perhaps I could accept the fact that my parents did not love me, because I had the love of the one person who had come to mean everything to me in life. My grandfather. Location 374-379

 

Bernard was not my real grandfather. Location 382-382

 

Nothing prepared Bernard for what he was to experience in the trenches of France. Not even life at the orphanage was that brutal. He lived by day and night in a hole in the ground on the Western Front, living like a rat among men and rats in filth and fear. At first, he wasn’t very good with a weapon. He had relied all his life on his fists; but he became more adept at using a rifle and learned to shoot and kill with a ferocity born out of fear and the will to survive. Location 507-510

That night, I learned many things. I learned how little effect I had on anything or anyone around me. That no matter what I did, or said or how I acted or did not act the world would go on much as it always had; I could do nothing to change anything or anyone in the least. That was the night I learned despair. Location 776-778

But oh how wrong both Ruth and Lynn were, as life would prove them. We would all eventually learn the truth of things, that the Bogeyman really does exist and there is something to fear in the night. Location 946-948

But I saw the truth of things early in life. She was terrified. For her, danger lay everywhere. She talked big, but did very little, never venturing from the myriad safe paths in life, until the end when necessity forced her down that most fearsome and dangerous path of all. Location 1414-1416

Disclosure: I received a review copy of this book from my Kindle from the author and TLC for review purposes. 

Square Peg

Square Peg: My Story and What It Means for Raising Innovators, Visionaries, and Out-of-the-Box Thinkers 

by Todd Rose with Katherine Ellison
Hyperion, 3/5/2013
Hardcover, 256 pages

ISBN-13: 978-1401324278

Description:

Square Peg illuminates the struggles of millions of bright young children—and their frustrated parents and teachers—who are stuck in a one-size-fits-all school system that fails to approach the student as an individual. Rose shares his own incredible journey from troubled childhood to Harvard, seamlessly integrating cutting-edge research in neuroscience and psychology along with advances in the field of education, to ultimately provide a roadmap for parents and teachers of kids who are the casualties of America’s antiquated school system.

With a distinguished blend of humor, humility, and practical advice for nurturing children who are a poor fit in conventional schools, Square Peg is a game-changing manifesto that provides groundbreaking insight into how we can get the most out of all the students in our classrooms, and why today’s dropouts could be tomorrow’s innovators.

My Thoughts:

 

Albert Camus said, "We are all special cases." Square Peg: My Story and What It Means for Raising Innovators, Visionaries, and Out-of-the-Box Thinkers by Todd Rose, with Katherine Ellison, certainly proves that we are all special and unique, especially in the way we approach learning. Square Peg is both a memoir and a personal manifesto. Todd Rose was a bright child who could not seem to avoid trouble and was quickly labeled a delinquent. Part of his problem was the way the educational system reacted to him in a misguided attempt to change or alter his behavior. Rose ended up a high school drop out, but he later went on to become a professor at the Harvard Graduate School of Education.

 

Rose elaborates on four ideas derived from the study of complex systems and recent neuroscience findings: variability is the rule (our perceptions and reactions are much more dynamic and diverse than previously thought); emotions are serious stuff (children's emotional states do influence their ability to learn); context is key (the circumstances can effect the behavior - this includes labeling children with a disorder); feedback loops determine long-term success or failure (chaos theory and small changes making a difference). At the end of each chapter Rose offers a summary of the "Big Ideas" from that chapter and "Action Items" for parents.

 

It was enlightening to see what Rose's mother and grandmother did right as Rose makes a case for student centered education. He makes it clear that we can't fix a child's behavior. Behavior is an extremely complex system that originates from the interaction of a person's biology, past experiences, and immediate context. If we can understand this complex systems, we could learn to do a better job as teachers and parents in supporting and educating kids, rather than setting them up for failure. Once a child is caught up in a negative feedback loop, it is hard to escape.

 

Medicating ADHD children so they can fit into the environment of school, while beneficial for many, may not completely address the root cause of a child's learning difficulties. The stress children can feel while at school does not help their ability to learn. Finding a way to use current technology to help all children individualize their education could potentially transform education and help many overcome their special needs or limitations.  For example, Rose himself had problems with his short term memory, so the ability to record a multi-step series of instructions with built in reminders would have benefited him enormously.

 

Square Peg is entertaining as well as informative. I appreciate the "Big Ideas" and "Action Items" at the end of each chapter. It is a nice way to summarize what points Rose believes are the most important from all the information and personal anecdotes he provides. Square Peg includes an epilogue with Rose's current research findings, chapter notes, and a bibliography.

 

Very Highly Recommended -  I truly enjoyed this book!

 

Todd Rose is a faculty member at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, international lecturer, and leading thinker in the field of educational neuroscience. Today, Todd works at the forefront of innovation in learning science and education, contributing new insights about learning variability and helping to design new educational technologies flexible enough to support all students in reaching their full potential.

Katherine Ellison is a Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist who has written three books on neuroscience and learning differences, most recently Buzz: A Year of Paying Attention, as well as related articles for media including The New York Times, Washington Post, and The Atlantic magazine.

 

 

Disclosure: I received an advanced reading copy of this book from the publisher and TLC for review purposes. 

TLC Book Tours TOUR STOPS for Square Peg:

Monday, March 4th:  Life Unfocused
Tuesday, March 5th:  Two Bears Farm and the Three Cubs
Wednesday, March 6th:  She Treads Softly
Thursday, March 7th:  Overstuffed
Friday, March 8th:  Book Club Classics!
Monday, March 11th:  Family Volley
Tuesday, March 12th:  Attention Deficit Whatever
Wednesday, March 13th:  Misbehavin’ Librarian
Thursday, March 14th:  Positive Thinking and ADHD
Friday, March 15th:  Smart Kids with LD
Monday, March 18th:  Earnest Parenting
Tuesday, March 19th:  Pragmatic Mom
Wednesday, March 20th:  Book Snob
Thursday, March 21st:  Luxury Reading
Friday, March 22nd:  Susan Heim on Parenting guest post
Monday, March 25th:  There’s a Book
Wednesday, March 27th:  Stiletto Storytime

Replacement Child

Replacement Child: A Memoir by Judy L. Mandel
Seal Press; March 5, 2013

Trade Paperback; 320 pages
ISBN-13: 978-1580054768
http://www.replacementchild.com/Home.html

Description:

Judy L. Mandel was born into a family crippled by grief. But it would be years before she would discover the shocking circumstances of their loss.
Replacement Child tells the true story of a horrifying accident: A plane crashes into a family’s home, leaving one daughter severely burned and another dead. The death of the child leaves a hole in the family that threatens to tear it apart. In an attempt to fill the painful gap, the parents give birth to a “replacement child.”
In this powerful story of love and lies, family and hope, Judy L. Mandel tells the story of being the child brought into the world to provide “a salve for the burns.” As a child, she unwittingly rides the deep and hidden currents of her family’s grief—until her discovery of this family secret, years later, changes her life forever, forcing her to confront the complex layers of her relationships with her father, mother, and sister.

My Thoughts:

Replacement Child: A Memoir by Judy L. Mandel opens with a newspaper story:

"ELIZABETH, N.J. —Elizabeth’s second aviation holocaust in thirty-seven days today had claimed at least twenty-eight lives . . . The ship plunged into the two houses near the southeast corner of South and Williamson streets at approximately 3:45 pm. Before firemen could subdue the roaring, orange flames that leaped nearly 100 feet into the rainy sky, three dwellings and a garage had been destroyed and a fourth house was damaged severely. Nearly a score of persons were homeless. Killed on the plane were Captain (Thomas J.) Reid and all twenty-two others aboard. Police . . . announced the following list of Elizabeth persons missing and feared dead: DONNA MANDEL, 7 years old, 310 Williamson Street . . . "

Judy was a replacement child, a child who is conceived to replace a deceased child. In her family's case, Donna, her deceased older sister, died in a horrific accident. A plane crashed into her family's apartment building. The building caught fire and her mother was able to save one of her daughters, 2 year old Linda, but had to leave the oldest daughter, 7 year old Donna, to die in the fire. Linda, the daughter who was saved from the fire, was seriously injured from major burns over her whole body. She was so scarred and disfigured from the fire that she had to suffer though many reconstructive surgeries throughout her life.

Judy was born into this family that was very much focused on Linda's care and ongoing surgeries while the memory of Donna, the deceased daughter, perpetually hangs over the whole family. Judy longed to be loved and accepted, but both of her parents seemed to keep her at a distance, especially her father, as if loving her or displaying any affection would tarnish the memory of her sister or take care away from Linda. This occurred even to the point that her parents stop introducing her or referring to her as their "beautiful daughter, Judy," something any proud parent might say, because they thought it might be insulting to Linda. 

As an adult, Judy decided to research the accident, the plane crash that no one in her family ever discussed openly and honestly with her, to try to understand the dysfunctional dynamics in her family. It always seemed to her that there were untold secrets, parts of the story that no one told her. Judy writes:

"I tell her I want to go back and see the scene of the crime—the crash site.

'Why would you want to do that?' she is incredulous.

I try to explain that since our parents died I’ve had a nagging feeling that there is something left undone in my own life. It may have something to do with the accident, I say, and going there in the flesh feels suddenly important to me. There have always been missing pieces, for me, in the story. Up until now, I’ve dismissed the gaps as irrelevant to my life—but now I suspect it is those missing pieces that may hold the seeds of my own truth about my ambivalence toward my father, my troubles with men, and my schizophrenic attitude toward risk and safety. I’m hoping the trip back will help me understand more about their lives, and my own." (pg.15)

Judy tells her story in chapters that follow several timelines, her childhood, her family before she was born leading up to the accident, and her current life. In this way she composes complete pictures of her family and how they were dealing with their lives and the aftermath of the tragic accident. Although Judy didn't learn the term "replacement child" until later in her life, it seems she always understood that she was there to replace Donna and yet she could never live up to the memory of her deceased sister.

Her parents inability to openly show Judy love and affection clearly resulted in damage to her self esteem and made her become a risk taker. She says, "By the time I was an adolescent, I saw it as my sacred duty to prove the world was a safer place than my parents believed, that I could take risks and survive." But her parent's solicitous manner toward Linda and her health also changed Linda. Judy writes: "My sister Linda couldn’t break away from thinking of my father as her knight, the one who made her feel like she could do anything she set her mind to. I had experienced a different side of my father growing up. His code with me was that I was the daughter who was blessed, who didn’t need his praise."

This is a re-written re-release of this memoir that was apparently first published in 2009. It is a powerful story about how unspoken family dynamics and secrets can influence people their whole lives. Certainly there are still examples of people losing a child and having a replacement child, whether they admit to that concept or not. It would be extremely hard for any child to be born into a family under that moniker and then not receive the love, acceptance and affection any child needs. Judy's struggles with relationships as an adult prove this.

Highly Recommended

Excerpt 

Excerpted from Replacement Child: A Memoir by Judy L. Mandel. Available from Seal Press, a member of the Perseus Books Group. Copyright 2013.
  

Disclosure: My Kindle edition was courtesy of Netgalley for review purposes.

Corporeality

Corporeality by Hollis Seamon
Able Muse Press, 1/31/2013
Paperback, 204 pages
ISBN-13: 9781927409039

http://hollisseamon.com/

Description:

In Corporeality, Hollis Seamon’s latest fiction collection, we meet the cat lady, the professor dealing with a plagiarist while coping with personal hardships, sibling rivalry of the unnaturally cursed kind, the dog that goes beyond everyday dog sense and scent to protect its owners. These are some of the eclectic characters and settings that make Corporeality irresistible and difficult to put down once you’ve started reading. Like her preceding collection Body Work and mystery novel Flesh, this book is a testament to Seamon’s ample gifts as a storyteller.

My Thoughts:

Corporeality by Hollis Seamon is a collection of short stories that follow the state of mind of various quirky and beleaguered characters.

The collection features 10 stories (in my advanced readers copy):

"SUTHY" - a 17 year old and a 15 year old are terminal and in hospice care with SUTHY: "Somebody Up There Hates You" syndrome.

"Annus Mirabilis" -  a professor who walked out on teaching to offer Bread and Books from the front porch of her home but troubles follow her there

"Leave It Lie" -  garbage men Gary and Echo become heroes when they find two babies in a garbage bag and rush them to the hospital.

"Fatty Lumpkin vs. The Reaper: Rounds One, Two and Three" - an old, fat, blind, but very intuitive terrier protects his owner from the grim reaper

"Gigantina" - three sisters, one strangely deformed, experience sibling rivalry

"The Plagiarist" - a professor deals with an obvious case of plagiarism while experiencing her own personal problems

"Like a Virus" -  A woman with agoraphobia meets a paranoid neighbor

"The Trojan Cat: A Drama in Three Acts" - a woman rescues her first cat, which leads to another, and another

"Praise Be to an Afflicting God" - two misfit neighbors and friends suspect that life on their street is changing

"Cabbage Night" - three girls fear their neighbor is killing their mother

 

This outstanding collection is masterfully written and the characters Seaman astutely creates are unforgettable. Several of the stories evoke raw emotions ranging from fear, anger, terror, and heartbreak. Most of the characters could be anyone you might see, a family you hear about in passing, or the neighbors you wonder about. My favorites were SUTHY, Annus Mirabilis, Leave It Lie, Fatty Lumpkin vs. The Reaper, and The Trojan Cat, but all the stories are certainly worth reading in this notable collection.

 

Very Highly Recommended - especially for fans of short stories 

 

No quotes since I had an advanced reading copy.

Disclosure: My Kindle edition was courtesy of Able Muse Press and Netgalley for review purposes.

Another Forgotten Child

Another Forgotten Child by Cathy Glass
HarperCollins UK,  2/5/2013
Trade Paperback, 309 pages

ISBN-13: 9780007486779 http://www.cathyglass.co.uk

Description:

A new memoir from Sunday Times and New York Times bestselling author Cathy Glass.Eight-year-old Aimee was on the child protection register at birth. Her five older siblings were taken into care many years ago. So no one can understand why she was left at home to suffer for so long. It seems Aimee was forgotten.The social services are looking for a very experienced foster carer to look after Aimee and, when she reads the referral, Cathy understands why. Despite her reservations, Cathy agrees to Aimee on – there is something about her that reminds Cathy of Jodie (the subject of ‘Damaged’ and the most disturbed child Cathy has cared for), and reading the report instantly tugs at her heart strings.When she arrives, Aimee is angry. And she has every right to be. She has spent the first eight years of her life living with her drug-dependent mother in a flat that the social worker described as ‘not fit for human habitation’. Aimee is so grateful as she snuggles into her bed at Cathy’s house on the first night that it brings Cathy to tears.Aimee’s aggressive mother is constantly causing trouble at contact, and makes sweeping allegations against Cathy and her family in front of her daughter as well. It is a trying time for Cathy, and it makes it difficult for Aimee to settle. But as Aimee begins to trust Cathy, she starts to open up. And the more Cathy learns about Aimee’s life before she came into care, the more horrified she becomes.It’s clear that Aimee should have been rescued much sooner and as her journey seems to be coming to a happy end, Cathy can’t help but reflect on all the other ‘forgotten children’ that are still suffering…

My Thoughts:

 

Cathy Glass is a pseudonym for a prolific author who writes about her personal experiences as a foster parent in the U.K. Another Forgotten Child is Cathy Glass's latest book/memoir. Aimee is a terribly abused and neglected eight year old child who was on the at risk child protection register at birth, but still fell through the cracks of a woefully inadequate, unorganized system. This bureaucratic oversight resulted in Aimee being left with a vicious, drug addicted, negligent mother, Susan. When Glass took over her care, Aimee was filthy, dressed in ill-fitting rags, lice-ridden, covered in bruises, and had no experience with basic personal hygiene. She had a defiant attitude, and had been subsisting on a horrendous diet consisting mostly of sweets. Soon Glass also realized that Aimee was likely also the victim of sexual abuse.

 

Aimee's mother, Susan, who had all five of her older children removed from her care years ago, knew how to work the system and complain, exaggerate, and twist events to try and exploit the various social workers an get her way. She is very insulting, threatening, and difficult to work with. It is obvious that Aimee's ordered supervised visits with her mother three times a week, and the telephone calls on the days other days were not in her best interest. 

 

Set up as relating a chronological series of events to the reader, like a journal, Glass's account of Aimee's arrival and her discovery of additional information is presented in a forthright way with no hyperbole or drama - beyond what Glass does to protect herself from Susan's unfounded accusations. She also includes many of the day to day actions that occurred while caring for Aimee. While there are times when this approach feels tiresome, the whole story is still very riveting. It is almost like you are reading a caseworkers detached account of a client. 

 

The biggest thing Cathy Glass does, beyond helping Aimee, is making an incontrovertible case that Aimee was not properly watched and served by the social services system in the U.K. In her case they did not serve her best interests and their neglect cause a child to suffer harm needlessly for eight years.

 

Very Highly Recommended - I had a few reservations about Cathy Glass's Another Forgotten Child however, once I started reading it I could not put it down.

 

Cathy has been a foster carer for over 20 years, during which time she has looked after more than 75 children, of all ages and backgrounds. Cathy runs training courses on fostering for her local Social Services, and helps draft new fostering procedures and guidelines. She has three teenage children of her own; one of whom was adopted after a long-term foster placement. The name Cathy Glass is a pseudonym.

 

 

Excerpt:  Chapter 1

 

 

Disclosure: I received an advanced reading copy of this book from the publisher and TLC for review purposes. 

 

With or Without You

With or Without You by Domenica Ruta
Random House, 2/26/2013
Hardcover, 224 pages

ISBN-13: 9780812993240
http://www.domenicaruta.com/

Description:

A haunting, unforgettable mother-daughter story for a new generation—the debut of a blazing new lyrical voice
 
Domenica Ruta grew up in a working-class, unforgiving town north of Boston, in a trash-filled house on a dead-end road surrounded by a river and a salt marsh. Her mother, Kathi, a notorious local figure, was a drug addict and sometimes dealer whose life swung between welfare and riches, and whose highbrow taste was at odds with her hardscrabble life. And yet she managed, despite the chaos she created, to instill in her daughter a love of stories. Kathi frequently kept Domenica home from school to watch such classics as the Godfather movies and everything by Martin Scorsese and Woody Allen, telling her, “This is more important. I promise. You’ll thank me later.” And despite the fact that there was not a book to be found in her household, Domenica developed a love of reading, which helped her believe that she could transcend this life of undying grudges, self-inflicted misfortune, and the crooked moral code that Kathi and her cohorts lived by.
 
With or Without You is the story of Domenica Ruta’s unconventional coming of age—a darkly hilarious chronicle of a misfit ’90s youth and the necessary and painful act of breaking away, and of overcoming her own addictions and demons in the process. In a brilliant stylistic feat, Ruta has written a powerful, inspiring, compulsively readable, and finally redemptive story about loving and leaving.

My Thoughts:

 

With or Without You is a powerful, disturbing, honest memoir by Domenica Ruta. Domenica suffered through a trash-strewn squalid childhood with her single mom, Kathi, in Danvers, Massachusetts. Kathi was a drug addict, dealer, and alcoholic. She was unpredictable and unstable. Even though I had an uncorrected proof, please allow me to share how Domenica describes Kathi:

 

 “Mummy wants to show off her boobies right now.” Her hair was almost black, but she insisted on bleaching it Deborah Harry blond. She had one tattoo, a small but regrettable crab on her left ring finger. It was her astrological sign—the Cancer. Even she was ashamed of it, I know, because she hid it under a gold wedding band long before she ever married. What else do you need to know about this woman before I go on with the story? That she believed it was more important to be an interesting person than it was to be a good one; that she allowed me to skip school whenever I wanted to, and if there was a good movie on TV she wouldn’t let me go to school because, she said, she needed me to stay home and watch it with her; that, thanks to this education, I was the only girl in the second grade who could recite entire scenes from Scarface and The Godfather by heart; that she made me responsible for most of my own meals when I was seven and all the laundry in the house when I was nine; that her ability to make money was alchemical; that she was vainer than a beauty queen, but the last time I saw her she weighed more than two hundred pounds and her arms were encrusted with purulent sores; that she loved me so much she couldn’t help hating me; that at least once a week I still dream she is trying to kill me. (Location 98-107)

 

As a child Domenica quickly picked up reading on her own. In a family "where people stumbled—and stumbled proudly—over three-syllable words, such a drooling little fiend for literature was endearing to no one. (It should be noted that even the most illiterate of my clan knew their way around a food-stamp application, a subpoena, and a workman’s compensation claim. We were nothing if not adroit at manipulating the system.)"

 

Kathi would work menial jobs to keep the cable on, get pain killers, and buy good clothes. They also were frequently on welfare. Kathi tried to share her pain killers with Domenica and wanted her daughter to experiment with more drugs at an early age. Domenica, however, resisted much of that (not all) and tried to focus on doing well at school, in spite of her circumstances, although she later succumb to the temptation of addiction. While Kathi's parenting skills were lacking, the whole family had addiction problems. Her grandmother was a dealer, although she wasn't a user. Everyone also swore loudly and often. "And, like movies, bad words were another resource in which my family was truly rich." Domenica also was sexually abused by a relative who was also a pedophile. While her family knew, they choose to remain firmly in denial about his activities.

Finally, Domenica describes her own ascension into drug addiction and alcoholism and how she struggled to overcome her addictions.

 

I did have a few issues with the book. Her early years began to feel like one bad story of neglect or addiction crashing into another. There was no good time frame or order established to help the reader follow when things occurred.  The end felt disjointed and like a lot of information was left out in order to wrap the memoir up quickly. This rushed feeling may simple be due to the amount of time that separates her childhood struggles from her adult addictions and recovery, making the early years easier to reflect upon. 

 

In any event, With or Without You is an emotionally wrought, highly recommended memoir that fans of The Glass Castle may enjoy (keeping in mind that it is not as well written as The Glass Castle).

 

 

Quotes: Excerpt

 

Disclosure: My Kindle edition was courtesy of Random House and Netgalley for review purposes.

Against My Will

Against My Will by Benjamin Berkley
Frederick Fell Publishers, 2012
Trade Paperback, 271 pages
ISBN-13: 9780883912799
http://www.benberkley.com/

Overview

Danielle Landau knows she should feel lucky, but she can't feel anything but dread. Not only did she pass the New York Bar, but she married the man her father says is just right for her and lives in a fashionable new loft in Queens. But the man who seems like the perfect catch is a perfect nightmare at home. Jacob tries to control her career, her daily routine, and even what she eats. He ignores her desires and belittles her every chance he gets. Soon, Danielle doesn't recognize her husband or herself, and she struggles to find a way out. One night, Jacob pushes her too far, and now Danielle has to escape. Whit the help of her beloved Nana, Danielle moves across the country and starts to rebuild her life. But will she be able to escape her past? And when one of her clients finds herself in the same terrible situation, will Danielle have the strength to help her? As we follow Danielle on her journey of terror and recovery, we see her story intersect with the diary entries of a young girl from more than fifty years ago, and the full weight of the family's secrets becomes clear. This is a story of survival, self-discovery, justice, and ultimately about love.

My Thoughts:

Against My Will by Benjamin Berkley is a novel with a message. Danielle Landau, a well educated but somewhat naive 29 year-old Jewish woman, is set up by her father and a matchmaker to meet and date Jacob Liebowitz. While she is more concerned with getting the results from taking the bar exam and starting her law career, Jacob is trying to push her into taking their relationship more seriously than she originally thought it should be taken. After they marry, Danielle quickly realizes what a horrible mistake it was to marry this man who must always be in control and has now become abusive. She puts up with the abuse, trying to be a good Jewish wife, until it finally becomes too much for her to tolerate any more and she talks to her grandmother, who tells Danielle to flee.

While we follow Danielle's story we also read diary entries from Rose, Danielle's grandmother. Rose lived in Austria in WWII and was sent to the Mauthausen Concentration Camp. She was chosen to work in the Commandant’s kitchen, which resulted in her survival, but at a cost.  

I must admit that as written, the character of Danielle's father was supremely annoying to me. All of the perfect catch talk and focus on Danielle's age as a reason she should marry someone right away just irritated me. And Danielle started off seemingly a woman with self confidence but then she let other's push her into this marriage. Ugh. I understand people-pleasers like to follow the rules, including sometimes other's wishes, but this seemed over the top for her to marry a man she really didn't seem to even like all that much.  Additionally, I quickly became weary of all the Yiddish. It also made me feel disconnected to the novel. A little less might have improved my reception of the story.

However, the main point of this novel is the message delivered through the story. Danielle eventually learns that no woman is ever her husband's property and that she is not required to do anything against her will or tolerate his abuse. It's an important message and one that you would think women would all understand today, but, alas, as I know all too well, women still fall into the trap of tolerating many forms of abuse because they are married or have religious beliefs that discourage divorce. Today, though, the vast majority of woman are not trapped, as Rose was, in their abusive environments with no means of escape.

Recommended for the message

Growing up in Long Beach, NY, young Ben Berkley was fascinated by daily black-and-white re-runs of the TV lawyer show Perry Mason. After getting a B.A. in Speech and Hearing from Adelphi University in Garden City, NY, Berkley earned his law degree from Western State University in Fullerton, CA. For the past 34 years he has conducted a busy general practice which includes divorce, estate planning, family law, social security disability appeals and bankruptcy. He writes a blog for the Huffington Post and is the author of four self-help books. Against My Will is Benjamin Berkley’s fifth book and debut novel. 

Disclosure: I received an advanced reading copy of this book from the author and Premier Virtual Author Book Tours for review purposes.    

No quotes as I had a galley copy.