Heartfelt advice for how abuse victims can “live above the pain of the past.”
This wrenching memoir of child abuse provides a road map to emotional recovery.
Handy (The Gatehouse: Enhancing Resilience in Adults Manuals 1 to 3, 2003, etc.) grew up one of seven children in Ontario, Canada. Her father, “The King,” worked in a Ford plant before becoming an Anglican priest and ruled the household dictatorially. He hit the author and sexually abused her between ages 7 and 15. Handy herself was an Anglican priest for a time, but as a lesbian, she felt “there was no place for me.” She also believes that the church tacitly condoned the abuse she experienced. (Her father confessed while in a mental hospital, but doctors assumed he was reporting hallucinations.) Leaving the church placed Handy in “a mournful limbo of identity,” yet she was determined to maintain “spiritual fluidity…without the trappings of formal religion.” She refers to the divinity she first encountered in nature as a child and regained decades later by the lovely metaphor of “the god of the cherry tree hills.” Handy conveys the arc of her experience without dwelling on the details of her abuse. Her memories are brief and impressionistic, augmented by her striking woodcut-style black-and-white illustrations. Having worked with child abuse victims for 30 years, she recognizes patterns of behavior similar to her own and explicates them clearly in the almost academic format of numbered sections. Three essential survival skills, she writes, are a belief in something greater than oneself, humor, and intelligence; four markers of resilience are autonomy, self-care, community, and being one’s own advocate. Detaching from the body and keeping silent are common responses to abuse, but the author warns that these can lead to suicidal thoughts, lashing out at others, and emotional numbness. Instead, she offers steps in the direction of forgiveness. There are a handful of unfortunate typos (“Forward” not Foreword, “exits” for exists, and “lays bear” instead of bare), but the book as a whole is well-presented and will no doubt be a valuable resource.
Heartfelt advice for how abuse victims can “live above the pain of the past.”Pub Date: May 29, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-5255-0883-7
Page Count: 162
Publisher: FriesenPress
Review Posted Online: July 13, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2018
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
An enjoyable slice of 20th-century music journalism almost certain to provide something for most readers, no matter one’s...
Music journalist and musician Wald (Talking 'Bout Your Mama: The Dozens, Snaps, and the Deep Roots of Rap, 2014, etc.) focuses on one evening in music history to explain the evolution of contemporary music, especially folk, blues, and rock.
The date of that evening is July 25, 1965, at the Newport Folk Festival, where there was an unbelievably unexpected occurrence: singer/songwriter Bob Dylan, already a living legend in his early 20s, overriding the acoustic music that made him famous in favor of electronically based music, causing reactions ranging from adoration to intense resentment among other musicians, DJs, and record buyers. Dylan has told his own stories (those stories vary because that’s Dylan’s character), and plenty of other music journalists have explored the Dylan phenomenon. What sets Wald's book apart is his laser focus on that one date. The detailed recounting of what did and did not occur on stage and in the audience that night contains contradictory evidence sorted skillfully by the author. He offers a wealth of context; in fact, his account of Dylan's stage appearance does not arrive until 250 pages in. The author cites dozens of sources, well-known and otherwise, but the key storylines, other than Dylan, involve acoustic folk music guru Pete Seeger and the rich history of the Newport festival, a history that had created expectations smashed by Dylan. Furthermore, the appearances on the pages by other musicians—e.g., Joan Baez, the Weaver, Peter, Paul, and Mary, Dave Van Ronk, and Gordon Lightfoot—give the book enough of an expansive feel. Wald's personal knowledge seems encyclopedic, and his endnotes show how he ranged far beyond personal knowledge to produce the book.
An enjoyable slice of 20th-century music journalism almost certain to provide something for most readers, no matter one’s personal feelings about Dylan's music or persona.Pub Date: July 25, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-06-236668-9
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Dey Street/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 15, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2015
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BOOK TO SCREEN
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Stricter than, say, Bergen Evans or W3 ("disinterested" means impartial — period), Strunk is in the last analysis...
Privately published by Strunk of Cornell in 1918 and revised by his student E. B. White in 1959, that "little book" is back again with more White updatings.
Stricter than, say, Bergen Evans or W3 ("disinterested" means impartial — period), Strunk is in the last analysis (whoops — "A bankrupt expression") a unique guide (which means "without like or equal").Pub Date: May 15, 1972
ISBN: 0205632645
Page Count: 105
Publisher: Macmillan
Review Posted Online: Oct. 28, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1972
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