A brutally honest, affecting memoir of family resilience.
In her debut memoir, former entrepreneur and catastrophic claims adjuster Atwell chronicles the challenges of helping an adult child with disabilities transition to independent living.
Atwell and her husband, John, were celebrating the independence of (and their independence from) Lindsey—who had recently graduated from high school, was employed, and lived in a cottage in their backyard—when Lindsey breathlessly announced that she’d had sex with Gabe, a developmentally disabled friend. Much to their relief, the encounter did not result in pregnancy, and Lindsey elected to undergo a tubal ligation, a decision that both relieved and disturbed Atwell, who mourned the grandchildren she would never have. The next indication of trouble came when Lindsey accepted a second job at a pizzeria, which seemed never to have any customers, owned by Emmett, a twice-divorced former pastor whom Atwell found creepy. Lindsey quit her full-time job and moved in with Emmett. Lindsey grew increasingly distant from her family, both geographically and emotionally. Emmett insisted the Atwells were prejudiced against him and ignored their concerns about his controlling behavior and lies about his past. After several years, frequent moves, and a period of homelessness, Lindsey finally returned to her parents. Eventually, Lindsey achieved a new level of independence, and she and Atwell reached a hard-earned truce in their strained relationship. Atwell frankly addresses the difficulties inherent in dealing with the sexuality of a special needs child. Told in flashbacks, she doesn’t focus on her journey to diagnosis, but begins when Lindsey is already an adult, illustrating that acceptance of a child’s special needs is an ongoing process. Some aspects of the account may make the reader cringe, such as Lindsey’s attempts at seduction. Lindsey’s story drives home the fact that legal adulthood begins at 18, regardless of maturity level, which hampered the Atwells’ efforts to rescue her from her bad relationship. Atwell’s evocative descriptions provide added depth to the characters, particularly Lindsey, whose voice emanates from the pages. The text is occasionally repetitive, but it doesn’t detract from the overall quality of the writing.
A brutally honest, affecting memoir of family resilience.Pub Date: Sept. 26, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-63152-280-2
Page Count: 325
Publisher: She Writes Press
Review Posted Online: Aug. 1, 2017
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
© Copyright 2025 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
