A meditative memoir of a wife’s bereavement.
In her debut, Mansfield recounts her personal and spiritual evolutions following her beloved husband’s terminal cancer diagnosis. Divided into before and after sections, the book details both the painful months leading up to his death and the years of mourning and emotional exploration that followed. The first half will be familiar to anyone who has been involved with the treatment of a long-term illness, from the indignities of hospitals to the search for moments of joy amid bleak circumstances. In these early chapters, Mansfield’s story often seems to lack direction, focusing on medical minutiae at the expense of narrative momentum and sometimes relying on clichéd language, as when the author refers to herself as “a lioness protecting her cub.” In the after section, however, the book builds into something far more original and exciting, offering readers a bold exploration of loss, grief and unexpected consequences. Drawing on the teachings of Buddhism, Jungian psychology, mythology and other spiritual resources, Mansfield thoughtfully crafts practices and rituals to help her and her loved ones cope with her husband’s death—an ongoing attempt to reconcile the joy of life with the pain of death. Her descriptions of her bereavement and slow recovery are honest and moving, rendered in subtly poetic language; at one point, she describes a group of dolphins as “luminous revelations leaping from the great unconscious sea.” What’s more, Mansfield’s perspective on her husband’s death is refreshingly curious and unflinching. She bravely allows for the possibility that losing him may have opened doors to opportunities she otherwise would not have had. These sharp insights alongside specific details of practical coping mechanisms make her account an instructive guidebook for readers confronting their own losses. Those interested in the natural world—and city folk yearning for a taste of country life—will also appreciate the vivid descriptions of her rural New York homestead and its central role in her healing process.
Deeply spiritual without being preachy, a comforting guide to mourning for readers of any stripe.
Pub Date: Oct. 7, 2014
ISBN: 978-1936012725
Page Count: 388
Publisher: Larson Publications
Review Posted Online: Aug. 13, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2014
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
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