Deep thoughts and troubled families
583367
People did not like this book.  However this is the first Abu-Jaber book I have read and although at first the people seemed annoying, the more I delved into the book the more I could understand them and worry about them.  It is not a happy book with a happy ending...but I think it depicts what can happen to a family when people aren't listening to each other.  Mom wanted to put the kids in "her" ideal for each..and ignored that they didn't fit.
Although it's amazing nothing happened to the daughter roaming around on her own as she was, I think if the story continued we would find her quite bruised .  I really enjoyed this book.
2593810
Given that her two sons have published memoirs of this famously dysfunctional family (Augusten Burroughs in "Running with Scissors" and others, and John Elder Robison in "Look Me in the Eye"), Margaret Robison's new memoir arrives with both a unique opportunity and a liability. The opportunity is an audience for her work.  The liability is that much of the story has been told, albeit from her sons' perspectives. Robison writes that she was shocked and heartbroken over the "fiction" she says her son Chris (who changed his name to Augusten Burroughs) wrote about her. While struggling mightily to acknowledge his talents, the hope his writing has provided to others, and her love for him, it appears that the damage of airing so much family pathology has largely ended her relationship with him. Perhaps those who wish to write memoirs should take heed.

Reading a memoir of madness (the kind where someone is psychotic or morbidly depressed and locked down in a mental institution) raises certain compelling questions. What contributes to such breakdowns and what kind of life can those with chronic mental illness expect?

Growing up in south Georgia in the 1940's, Robison attempted to lead a conventional life of meeting the expectations of a distant, repressed mother and a depressed, alcoholic father. She also battled the shame of a growing but unspeakable (in the context of her family and times) same-sex attraction.

But more than the family baggage, Robison's descent into madness and dysfunction seemed to pivot on her tragic need to give herself over to beguiling mad men, first to her husband, John, an abusive alcholoic who later became a professor of philosophy, and then to a predatory crackpot psychiatrist, Dr. Turcotte. The experiences that arose from these associations would have capsized almost anyone's boat.

After divorcing her husband, extricating herself (with police assistance) from Dr. Turcotte, and abandoning a love relationship with a woman that was going nowhere, Robison begins to claim her own life again.  She then has to deal with recovering from two serious strokes from which she still has disabilities. An older woman now who says she is not afraid of death, her life feels more like one of acceptance than one of victory.

Compelling, harrowing, and richly detailed, this memoir is a testament to resiliency. We have far less control in life than we want to admit over our family history and culture, our mental health, the behavior of others, and choices that can only be understood in retrospect. Yes, it's a late arrival, but I'm grateful that Robison has chosen, with this memoir, to be the authority in her own life.
377931
So often, we see children interacting in negative ways with caregivers, and society simply labels these children as brats, or blames the parents, saying things like, If only the parent had better control of that child, they wouldnt act like that. This book emphasizes that as outsiders, many of us have no idea of the struggles many of these children and families have faced, and sometimes, simply providing love is not enough to help these children heal.
1043079
This book reveals the diagnosis of attachment disorder through the narrative of the childhood of affected families. It helped to put into daily life experience the challenges and struggles that this affliction brings to the basic relationship needs of ordinary family living. For those working with families who are struggling to raise challenging children or working with children whose early experiences have left them short of trust building early childhood experiences it provides a framework on which to construct helpful and effective interventions.
2906693
This novel really portrays what happens to a marriage and family when a spouse succumbs to addiction. In this novel, a husband drifts into alcoholism and compulsive gambling.

Seeing how the behavior of the man impacts his wife and sons is heart wrenching. Slattery allows us to see life from both the wayward husband and the desperate wife. It really made me think of the kinds of decisions I would make in a similar situation. And how is it possible to prevent harm from falling down onto the children when the relationship between the parents is crumbling? It reminded me of the importance of trying to understand the hurt young adults are feeling.

Slattery also gives us good insight into the ministries that help those in desperate situations. Intervention done well is so important, both for the addicted spouse and the spouse at a loss in knowing how to move forward.

It is refreshing to be reminded that our God is a God of miracles. I did feel the miracle was a little abrupt, leaving many loose ends at the novel's sudden end. We are left with many unresolved issues that begs for a sequel. We have had a good example of how family relationships might be so seriously damaged. Now we need to be shown how those relationships can be put back together again.

I recommend this book to those who would like to see the reality of addiction, what it does to a family, and how God can provide a way back to individual wholeness.

I received a complimentary egalley of this book from the publisher for the purpose of an independent and honest review.
1031870
This an incredible story about how mental illness affects an entire family, as the mother slowly deteriorates, leaving a father and 2 girls to cope with the turmoil and dysfunction.  It is sensitively written, hard to put down, and deals with a subject that is often the "skeleton in the family closet."  Each member of the family deals with it and tries to overcome the pain and dysfunction. It is a story of redemption, love, and learning to overcome the past, to not let it define who you become.  This is a story about generations of a family and how the "painted table" symbolizes turning points in their lives.  Having lived through a similar situation in my own childhood, this was heartwrenching , reflective and a challenging read.
189944
With few but powerful characters, this book tackles familial love while wrestling with the onslaught of racial integration during post WW II South. The book reveals how racism and integration can try even the most reasonable of souls and strain even the most loving of family relationships. The book gives food for thought, not solutions to one of America's most vexing problems: can there ever be equality between parent and child, black and white, or man and woman?
2510360
My husband and I shared our home with his Mom for o error twenty years.  She had dementia caused by mini strokes. Or, at least that was the best guess the doctors could come up with.  The book describes the family and how their interpersonal relationships were affected by theirs Mom's slow slide into nothingness, but really could not convey the horror, the pain and the guilt of how Alzheimer's and dementia affects families. Even knowing the patient is not able to control themselves, it still becomes increasingly hard to deAl with the patient.  It is also pure murder on relationships.  In the book the problems helped the family find each other and learn to accept each other.  In life, more often than not, it simply tears families apart. The helplessness, knowing there is nothing to stop the loss of self for the patient, leaves the family in a state oh hurt,  and far too many regrets.  The book is really good, I only wish our years of dealing with dementia could have turned out as well. While the doctors  seem helpless to help the patient, there needs to be more focus on helping the families survive and recover from the destruction the disease leave in their aftermath.
2769982
I really like this picture. Don't know what to say about it, but that family is so misunderstood. If you don't communicate and let children and parents know the truth about issues and tragic events, feelings will always be hurt.
3135270
A book that explains how and why seemingly "normal" and sometimes "normal" and affluent families can be secretly extremely dysfunctional, producing children and grown children with serious emotional pain and/or psychiatric disorders. Thorough in its coverage of family dynamics, overt and covert narcissism, effects on children, and treatment techniques for the affected.
1903166
That family systems play a role in psychopathology is an idea that stretches back to Freud and has been championed by V. Satir. The difficulty with this attractive idea has been the lack of measurable mid level constructs that enable systematic study of family dynamics. This book suggests a series of those constructs and a possible measurement strategy that enables reliable investigation.  New researchers in this field will find this book an attractive starting point.

Mark-David Janus, PhD.
3261826
This book was very interesting to me.
My opinion is that the parents of this young should have been brought in for counseling.
Maybe the whole family. I sometimes had trouble figuring out if some of the things that
happened to her were part of her delusions. Whole family very troubled.
3947605
This story comes full circle with family issues that may be close to home for many people, but it doesn't dwell on the issues as much as this family's resolution to put the past behind them. very good read! :)
2801002
I thought the plot of the book was a quick grab when a much loved child goes missing.  The story line does not focus so much on the missing child but the intricacies in the relationships of the remaining family left in the wake of this event.  The missed opportunities of the parents have always been  projected on the offspring to satisfy the feelings of loss and emptiness that the adults experience.  The children in the story are grappling to find their own paths amid expectations that they can't even begin to understand.  Underneath the trauma of the pressures that lead to the crux of the story; ultimately there is a role each member plays at all cost to keep their family together.  In the complexity of what family means in today's society I think inside we all want to cling to and want to belong someplace where we feel unconditionally accepted despite all we are and are not.
It's not a very deep read or a long read but insightful into family dynamics.
4826191
Raw family dynamics and racial, societal struggle. Children suffering their parents inability to overcome and make empowering choices, visited on the generation to follow, and possibly again. Fascinating look into an American Oriental family.
1798657
There is little doubt that most people will recognize their own families in this book since no family is perfect and most are truly dysfunctional to some degree. This book has a good spiritual approach to looking at family life.

I use it as a part-time minister to give me insights on famlies and their issues. I think everyone can get something of great value out of reading this book. I highly recommend it along with the whole series of books offered as a part of the Minirth-Meier Healing series.
3259576
Outside of the death of a child, the most heart wrenching experience a parent can face is having a disabled child.  "Heart wrenching"?  Perhaps a word too strong?  Yes, Marshak, Seligman and Prezant make this clear in their book.  In some cases, the disabled child changes the configuration of the family into something unexpectedly positive.  Within this book, we see writing that is refreshing because the authors offer an uncommon perspective on disability and the family.
DISABILITY AND THE FAMILY LIFE CYCLE is the most comprehensive and up-to-date source book I have been able to find and read.  In addition to being helpful for professionals who work with families with disabled children, I think that some parents will find the book emotionally rewarding.
This is an excellent piece of thoughtful scholarship. I highly recommend it.