A warm, engaging read about the ways in which memory distorts our understanding of family.
Years after the death of her father, a woman explores her family’s past in this memoir.
The genesis of Harrigan’s debut book is in her essay “Revenge of the Prey: How a Deer Killed My Dad,” published by the Rumpus in 2011, and it explores the legacy of her father, who died in a car accident in 1974 when she was 7. The title is a reference to a different accident in the early 1960s, which claimed her father’s dominant hand—a mysterious event that Harrigan worked to uncover. She realized how time had strained her own memory, so she set out to learn more about her father from her other family members only to find out that her dad may not have been the man she remembered. This is the strength of Harrigan’s book, because although her father is its central subject, it’s also about the web of relationships connected to his memory: how did the author’s brother Louis, who read Homer as a little boy for fun and grew up to become an art historian, feel about his gruff, stereotypically masculine father? Why did the author and her sister, Lynn, who was in the car when her father died, become estranged? How does the tragedy influence the author’s approach to marriage and parenting? Harrigan infuses each dynamic with style and drama that make the book consistently engaging, and her prose is lively and accessible: “I’m wearing white Keds or Salvation Army red cowboy boots in the cemetery snow, waiting for my father to rise from underground, as if he’d just been a bear in hibernation.” Her account of her relationship with her son, Noah, is a highlight, showing how he must learn to accept his own father (Harrigan’s ex-husband). However, she does have a tendency to belabor the unreliability of memory; frequently, she reminds readers of how it’s “Strange how people in my family have different pieces of memories,” as if it weren’t the book’s clear, predominant theme. Despite this redundancy, though, the book feels fresh and reads easily.
A warm, engaging read about the ways in which memory distorts our understanding of family.Pub Date: Oct. 1, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-61248-210-1
Page Count: 248
Publisher: Truman State University Press
Review Posted Online: Aug. 3, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2017
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
This is not the Nutcracker sweet, as passed on by Tchaikovsky and Marius Petipa. No, this is the original Hoffmann tale of 1816, in which the froth of Christmas revelry occasionally parts to let the dark underside of childhood fantasies and fears peek through. The boundaries between dream and reality fade, just as Godfather Drosselmeier, the Nutcracker's creator, is seen as alternately sinister and jolly. And Italian artist Roberto Innocenti gives an errily realistic air to Marie's dreams, in richly detailed illustrations touched by a mysterious light. A beautiful version of this classic tale, which will captivate adults and children alike. (Nutcracker; $35.00; Oct. 28, 1996; 136 pp.; 0-15-100227-4)
Pub Date: Oct. 28, 1996
ISBN: 0-15-100227-4
Page Count: 136
Publisher: Harcourt
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 1996
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
An extravaganza in Bemelmans' inimitable vein, but written almost dead pan, with sly, amusing, sometimes biting undertones, breaking through. For Bemelmans was "the man who came to cocktails". And his hostess was Lady Mendl (Elsie de Wolfe), arbiter of American decorating taste over a generation. Lady Mendl was an incredible person,- self-made in proper American tradition on the one hand, for she had been haunted by the poverty of her childhood, and the years of struggle up from its ugliness,- until she became synonymous with the exotic, exquisite, worshipper at beauty's whrine. Bemelmans draws a portrait in extremes, through apt descriptions, through hilarious anecdote, through surprisingly sympathetic and understanding bits of appreciation. The scene shifts from Hollywood to the home she loved the best in Versailles. One meets in passing a vast roster of famous figures of the international and artistic set. And always one feels Bemelmans, slightly offstage, observing, recording, commenting, illustrated.
Pub Date: Feb. 23, 1955
ISBN: 0670717797
Page Count: -
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: Oct. 25, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 1955
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