Category: Family
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Conflict with Parent Fleshes in Authentic Character
One of the most common complaints I hear in a memoir workshop is about the difficulty of writing honest feelings about parents. I encourage writers to push through their reluctance. Writing about them will reveal the relationships in new ways. Even if this material does not appear within the frame of your proposed story, you…
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Courage to Write, Passion to Read
Before I even purchased the book, I knew from the blurb that the author was an English Literature professor at the University of Massachusetts at Dartmouth. I knew that “Courage to Walk,” was about the crippling and potentially deadly illness of a second son, and I knew about the death of Robert and Linda’s oldest…
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A memoir of mourning helps make sense of loss
Now I realize after reading “Losing Jonathan” that I loved the Waxlers’ memoir for similar reasons. Like Kate Braestrup they were on a quest to wrest their sanity back from the abyss. At first they were thirsty for support from their community. Then, after five years, Linda suggested, “We should try to write a book.…
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The powerful story of an ordinary woman
As I ponder the memoir Off Kilter, I find another dimension that offers me uplifting hope and optimism. By writing her story, Linda has performed a remarkable service to herself and her readers. She has broken the code of silence, and exposed her family dynamics to the world, where we can all compare notes. In…
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Who protects the children? Author Ashley Rhodes-Courter’s Foster Care activism
by Jerry Waxler When parents and extended family are unable to take care of a child, “society” is supposed to pick up the burden. I hope that happens, but I didn’t know the details until I read Ashley Rhodes-Courter’s beautifully written memoir, “Three Little Words.” Ashley is qualified to speak authoritatively about the fate of…
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Memoirs as a journey from blindness to sight
I felt a little cheated that it took the author so long to start looking within himself. Then I look at my pile of memoirs and realize that most of the authors continue through the darkness for a really long time. Dani Shapiro in “Slow Motion” took forever to realize she was destroying herself. Jeanette…
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Follow that car! How drama reveals the inner story
One Saturday, we drove south on 17th Street, made a left on to Ontario, and started east towards Broad Street, when a large man ran out between two cars and flagged down the car. He knocked on the window, yelling at us to open up, gesturing down the street towards some unseen quarry. It was…
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