Reflection and honesty that will move readers to sorrow, rage, and introspection.
Powerful postmortem of an abusive marriage.
Deconstructing the hetero-patriarchy that buttressed her toxic relationship is a weighty and confusing task, yet Hamilton does it with aplomb in this literary memoir. She does not ask for the reader’s pity as she dissects her dangerous marriage to a now ex-husband and the betrayal of those who did not believe her. How does the patriarchy uphold standards that support and normalize abuse like this? Hamilton both asks and answers that question in her honest and eye-opening story. Once readers dive into her unvarnished account , it is not easy to continue yet equally impossible to stop. Hamilton’s prose is cutting, uncomfortable, and heartbreaking. In her opening pages she asks, “Who is the monster here?” after detailing a violent outburst by her husband. She uses this thread to dissect patriarchal views that give more grace and understanding to men, even those who have proven to be brutal and cruel, and none to the women who endure their cruelty. At times, the tonal shift from intense memory recall to academic analysis can feel like being wrenched from the deep end of a pool of emotions into a lecture hall as Hamilton goes beyond personal experience to tackle the world that allowed her suffering to continue. “I am clear in my own mind that I do not tell this story to humiliate or wound,” she states. “I am trying to do something much less petty and more important: to make visible the ways in which misogyny shapes relationships, culture, and the legal system.” Hamilton calls upon feminist authors such as Kate Chopin, Maria Carmen Machado, and Angela Carter to find her footing within her emotions. Untangling the complex threads of her narrative is no easy task, but it’s worth the effort.
Reflection and honesty that will move readers to sorrow, rage, and introspection.Pub Date: Oct. 15, 2024
ISBN: 9780807016404
Page Count: 240
Publisher: Beacon Press
Review Posted Online: Aug. 17, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2024
Some of Avant’s mantras are overstated, but her book is magnanimous, inspiring, and relentlessly optimistic.
Memories and life lessons inspired by the author’s mother, who was murdered in 2021.
“Neither my mother nor I knew that her last text to me would be the words ‘Think you’ll be happy,’ ” Avant writes, "but it is fitting that she left me with a mantra for resiliency.” The author, a filmmaker and former U.S. Ambassador to the Bahamas, begins her first book on the night she learned her mother, Jacqueline Avant, had been fatally shot during a home invasion. “One of my first thoughts,” she writes, “was, ‘Oh God, please don’t let me hate this man. Give me the strength not to hate him.’ ” Daughter of Clarence Avant, known as the “Black Godfather” due to his work as a pioneering music executive, the author describes growing up “in a house that had a revolving door of famous people,” from Ella Fitzgerald to Muhammad Ali. “I don’t take for granted anything I have achieved in my life as a Black American woman,” writes Avant. “And I recognize my unique upbringing…..I was taught to honor our past and pay forward our fruits.” The book, which is occasionally repetitive, includes tributes to her mother from figures like Oprah Winfrey and Bill Clinton, but the narrative core is the author’s direct, faith-based, unwaveringly positive messages to readers—e.g., “I don’t want to carry the sadness and anger I have toward the man who did this to my mother…so I’m worshiping God amid the worst storm imaginable”; "Success and feeling good are contagious. I’m all about positive contagious vibrations!” Avant frequently quotes Bible verses, and the bulk of the text reflects the spirit of her daily prayer “that everything is in divine order.” Imploring readers to practice proactive behavior, she writes, “We have to always find the blessing, to be the blessing.”
Some of Avant’s mantras are overstated, but her book is magnanimous, inspiring, and relentlessly optimistic.Pub Date: Oct. 17, 2023
ISBN: 9780063304413
Page Count: 288
Publisher: HarperOne
Review Posted Online: Aug. 17, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2023
A fierce, penetrating, and empowering call for change.
Artist and activist Vaid-Menon demonstrates how the normativity of the gender binary represses creativity and inflicts physical and emotional violence.
The author, whose parents emigrated from India, writes about how enforcement of the gender binary begins before birth and affects people in all stages of life, with people of color being especially vulnerable due to Western conceptions of gender as binary. Gender assignments create a narrative for how a person should behave, what they are allowed to like or wear, and how they express themself. Punishment of nonconformity leads to an inseparable link between gender and shame. Vaid-Menon challenges familiar arguments against gender nonconformity, breaking them down into four categories—dismissal, inconvenience, biology, and the slippery slope (fear of the consequences of acceptance). Headers in bold font create an accessible navigation experience from one analysis to the next. The prose maintains a conversational tone that feels as intimate and vulnerable as talking with a best friend. At the same time, the author's turns of phrase in moments of deep insight ring with precision and poetry. In one reflection, they write, “the most lethal part of the human body is not the fist; it is the eye. What people see and how people see it has everything to do with power.” While this short essay speaks honestly of pain and injustice, it concludes with encouragement and an invitation into a future that celebrates transformation.
A fierce, penetrating, and empowering call for change. (writing prompt) (Nonfiction. 14-adult)Pub Date: June 2, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-593-09465-5
Page Count: 64
Publisher: Penguin Workshop
Review Posted Online: March 14, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2020
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