Posts filed under 'Biography/Memoir'
“They Poured Fire on Us from the Sky: The True Story of Three Lost Boys from Sudan”
They Poured Fire on Us from the Sky: The True Story of Three Lost Boys from Sudan by Benson Deng, Alephonsion Deng and Benjamin Ajak with Judy A. Bernstein
In the introduction, Judy Bernstein compares the situation that the three ‘lost boys’ of this title have been through as analogous to that of the novel Lord of the Flies. I liked this because you are reading this book for your English II Honors class and Lord of the Flies is required reading during the sophomore year. Once you have read both of these books, I think you’ll have great class discussions on the ideas of whether individuals need to be governed—whether they behave differently if they know that there is no policeman (or policewoman) on the corner, keeping them in line.
The three young men who tell their stories here are brothers and a cousin from ‘Dinka Land’ in the Sudan. They walked a 1,000 mile journey to the safety of a refugee camp in Kenya. (The map in the book is very helpful.) One of the first things that the lost boys did when they came to the United States (to San Diego, CA) was buy journals and write their stories. They begin with ordinary life in their villages—coming-of-age rituals of being circumcised, daily meals, caring for animals, the relationships between husbands and wives. As rumors of war spread, the boys are instructed on how to hide when the government soldiers come through the village. Eventually, the villages are raided and the boys lose track of their parents and other family members. They are on their own, trying to make it to safety.
Their trips—both together and separately, in the company of soldiers or with groups of similar lost boys—are circuitous. As the reader, I wondered about the long-term effects of their having witnessed so much death—murder, kids stepping on land mines, bombs going off in other kids’ hands. I wonder how they survived starvation and death from lack of water on numerous occasions. I also thought that, at your age, you may not have heard of some of the more awful things the book addresses, such as female circumcision.
If you are very moved by this book, you may enjoy reading A Long Way Gone, which I’ve reviewed on this blog. The boy in that book did not escape the rebel soldiers (as the three in this book managed to do), so his story is a bit different. He is forced to become a soldier as a mere child and to brutally murder villagers. The veteran soldiers keep him and other boys drugged all the time, so that they don’t have a real awareness of what they are doing.
Both books give us an idea of what war is really like when it is happening in your own backyard.
Add comment May 29, 2010
“Into Thin Air”
Much has been written about Jon Krakauer’s Into Thin Air and I can’t say anything new, but that, like every reviewer, I thought it was a great book. I’m glad that it’s one of the options for your summer reading.
As you know (or will know when you finish the book), Krakauer climbed Mt. Everest in 1996—at the very time that one of the worst killing-storms hit the mountain. His party (as well as another linked to a famous guide) was one of the most affected in a storm that left five climbers dead and one–who appeared dead–very frostbitten, losing his hand and parts of his face.
Though it’s been awhile since I read the book, three things have stayed with me. The first is the deep irony of the circumstances—that Krakauer hoped to show how, with the right guide and enough money, these days just about anyone could climb the much commercialized Everest. Yet two of the five people who died in the storm of the day Krakauer descended the peak were guides Rob Hall and Scott Fischer, the world’s best. And so nature can’t be controlled, no matter what we believe. The second thing that has remained with me over the years is how an oxygen-deprived brain can cause people to make terrible decisions, ones that put their own and others’ lives at risk. And last, though I can’t say it was surprising, is the sadness of learning that climbers, who were very close to their long-time goal of climbing Everest, left others to die because helping them would have meant that they had to turn away from the peak and not ‘summit.’
So—what most affected you?
Add comment May 18, 2010
“Beautiful Boy” and “Tweak”
“It hurts so bad that I cannot save him, protect him, keep him out of harm’s way, shield him from
pain. What good are fathers if not for these things?” Thomas Lynch, “The Way We Are”
David Sheff begins Beautiful Boy with this quote. The fact that he can’t save his son Nic, from his addiction to meth doesn’t stop him from trying again and again, doesn’t stop him from blaming himself for any and every mistake, small or large, that he made in raising Nic, doesn’t keep him from the intense research about meth addiction that informs this memoir.
To say I was riveted from page one is not hyperbole. I wanted so badly for everything to get better, for Nic to wake up and see what his addiction was doing to his family, to him. But as a meth addict this wasn’t even possible for Nic. The research tells you why and Sheff explains it. It seems the best possible hope to stop meth addiction is never to start, not once. If this is hard for you to believe, if this just seems like the sort of fairy tale that teachers tell, YOU MUST READ THIS BOOK. And—if you are suffering because someone in your family is an addict—if a parent, brother or sister is lying, stealing your money, breaking into your house or your room, promising to do better but never acting on that promise—YOU MUST READ THIS BOOK. It will reinforce the “three C’s of Al-Anon” for you: you didn’t cause it, you can’t control it and you can’t cure it. One focus of this book is to help addicts’ family members to stop being ‘addicted to addiction’—to work on living their own lives.
Beautiful Boy is as much a story about relapse as it is about anything. As it opens, Nic returns from college very excited to see his family, his little brother and sister. But he’s relapsed into crystal meth addiction and life explodes. From here, we track back to look at the course of Nic’s addiction. David Sheff, as Nic’s father, will blame himself about so many things: his divorce from his first wife, his unconventional raising of Nic, the fact that he did drugs himself when he was young. Yet to the reader—who will acknowledge that Nic’s joint-custody life must be lousy because it requires him to jockey between the Bay Area (San Francisco) and Los Angeles—parts of Nic’s childhood seem ideal. He is allowed so much creativity; he lives with his father, step-mother, sister and brother in one of the most beautiful, desirable neighborhoods in the country (in Marin County); his step-mother is an artist and encourages Nic’s own artistic skills. He is not only smart and well-loved by his teachers at his exclusive private school—he’s an agile athlete too, and has the time and money to surf. His father joins him and takes the kind of interest in Nic’s activities that most kids only dream about.
How does all this turn out so terribly wrong? Nic experiments with alcohol and marijuana in middle school. From there, he moves on to harder drugs. After going away to Paris as an exchange student, he not only comes home with an ulcer, but has become an addict. His many efforts at rehab fail over and over in a heartbreaking cycle of addiction and sobriety. He is depressed. He uses up his health insurance allowance for rehab and then his parents dive into their bank accounts. Meanwhile, David Sheff, the father, has a brain hemorrhage and nearly dies. It seems he’s going to have to let go or he won’t be around to raise his younger children. Yet even his father’s near death doesn’t stop Nic’s addiction. He takes up with a girlfriend who shoots meth and speedballs with him.
Since Sheff has done so much research, he will tell the reader how meth burns away nerve endings and wipes out the brain’s dopamine (a neurotransmitter responsible for feeling good, for feeling pleasure); how addicts cough up the lining of their lungs. He points out the fact that if the body and mind are to heal, the addict must be sober for two years. Nic is sober once for eighteen months and relapses; then again for almost two years and relapses.
Tweak is Nic Sheff’s telling of his own tale, but he covers a shorter time period than his father does in Beautiful Boy. Tweak is a young adult book (it’s meant to be read by teens), and it covers some pretty scary territory. As a crystal meth addict, Nic has ‘turned tricks’ for drug money; he gets an infection from shooting up and nearly has his arm amputated. It’s tough to read about someone destroying himself—especially if you’ve read Beautiful Boy first and are thinking of Nic as his father portrays him. However, Nic’s story might be the incentive you need to bolter yourself against peer pressure, to reject a life in ruins.
Add comment February 25, 2010
“Mistaken Identity”
“Mistaken Identity” by Don and Susie Van Ryn and Newell, Colleen and Whitney Cerek with Mark Tabb
I must have been in hiding in 2006 because I don’t remember this story from the news at all. However, it is so bizarre, the fact that it is true boggles the mind. I think you’ll race through this memoir of two families (despite the fact that the writing isn’t great) because your disbelief will keep you turning the pages.
Whitney Cerak and Laura Van Ryan were students at Taylor University, a small, Christian college with campuses in Michigan and Indiana. Both are victims of an accident that killed five of the six students in a school van. One girl, who lived, was thrown 50 feet from the accident and sustained traumatic brain injuries. She was identified as Laura Van Ryn by someone from the university. For five weeks, the Van Ryn family stayed with their daughter round the clock, helping her to recover. Until she wasn’t their daughter anymore. She was actually Whitney Cerek. Laura had died in the accident. Whitney had lived. Imagine the pain for both families—Whitney’s family had already had a funeral and was grieving, believing she was dead. Laura’s family was posting a regular blog on her progress. Now they needed to understand that she had never made it through the accident.
What sustains both families is their faith. In a world where such a situation just sings LAWSUIT, the families don’t lay blame and look to God to sustain them. The book includes many examples of others who are so moved by the families’ faith, that their own faith is renewed. You’ll enjoy this on many levels—the strangeness of the story, the dedication of both families. And if stories of faith inspire you, these families will renew your belief in the goodness that is possible in the worst of times.
Add comment February 12, 2009
“A Three Dog Life”
“A Three Dog Life” by Abigail Thomas
Here’s a memoir that truly is poignant (a word very much overused). When a teacher assigns memoir reading, ask if you can read “A Three Dog Life.” It’s short at 182 pages—many teachers here require a minimum of 200—but has more to offer than many much longer works. Point out to your teacher that the writing is wonderful, exactly the type that English teachers want you to be exposed to. The figurative language is quite simply lovely.
The author, Abigail Thomas, marries her third husband when she is 46 and he is 57. She describes him as the nicest man in the world, and they live together for thirteen years. Their lives crack open one day when Abigail learns that her dog, Harry, is in the apartment building elevator by himself. Where is her husband, Rich?
The tragic answer is that Rich has been hit by a car while going after Harry, whose leash had broken. Rich suffers a traumatic brain injury and it’s permanent. This nicest man in the world then has short-term memory loss, hallucinations, and becomes paranoid and violent. I expected here to have a story about what a drag Abigail’s life became—or a rationale for why she had to divorce her husband, as he must be hospitalized due to his rages. But no. Thomas discusses how she moved from her Manhattan apartment in order to be closer to her husband. Rather than seeing herself as a martyr, she shows the reader what is still good in her life. She records the strange and beautiful way her husband speaks and finds that, though he never put any stock in such things, he now has a sixth sense that surfaces under the strangest circumstances.
The title is based on the idea of a ‘three dog night’—a night so cold that one has to cuddle with three dogs in order to survive. (I actually knew this because when I was very young, a popular band was named Three Dog Night!) And in the course of her years after Rich’s accident, Abigail does acquire two more dogs. Thomas wrote another memoir that discusses the death of her second husband entitled “Safekeeping.” At present, we don’t have it in our library, but it appears to contain the same wonderful writing and lucid understanding of life’s foibles, so I’ll try to get (afford) it.
Add comment January 8, 2009
“Same Kind of Different as Me”
“Same Kind of Different as Me” by Ron Hall and Denver Moore with Lynn Vincent
Ms. G here at COHS recommended this book to me because it was so moving that she couldn’t put it down. It’s quite a tale—and I think you, too, will be moved to tears.
Author Ron Hall is married to a woman who cares so deeply for others that her story is pure inspiration to the reader. Debra Hall’s willingness to not only feed and clothe but befriend the homeless shows us what true faith can do—it knocks the patronizing ego right off the shelf and helps us see the real person we are connecting with. Debra’s faith is the force that lets her recognize Denver Moore as a man for whom God has big plans.
Denver was a homeless African-American who came to the Union Gospel Mission for meals, but who kept himself apart from others and trusted no one–with good reason. Denver grew up in the American South not only under Jim Crow laws, but as a sharecropper—which translates as a sort of modern slavery. He lived in a place that time left behind, where he works land he doesn’t own and owes money to ‘the man’ for bare essentials. He never went to school; being illiterate, there seems to be no escape for him from desperate poverty. (There’s a story of racism in the book that will chill your bones, but I don’t want to give away the whole book!)
Denver and other homeless people start referring to the Halls as “Mr. and Mrs. Tuesday” because they work at the homeless mission every Tuesday, unlike most folks who are just holiday volunteers. Soon Deborah is spending many days each week helping, organizing outing, and more. Denver’s faith is revived through Deborah’s actions.
When tragedy strikes the Halls, the tables turn and Denver’s friendship helps them keep their faith. As Denver says, using fishing as his metaphor, true friendship isn’t a catch-and-release program. It’s for keeps.
When your teacher asks you to read a biography or memoir, pick this one up and see how ordinary people overcome extraordinary obstacles.
Add comment December 4, 2008
“Escape” and “Stolen Innocence”
“Escape” by Carolyn Jessop and “Stolen Innocence” by Elissa Wall
I have to admit that I’ve become somewhat fascinated with polygamists cults in the last few years. As I read headlines about kids being removed from polygamist parents—and given back—I can’t help but wonder what it would be like to live in such an alternative universe. The idea of living with a husband and several ‘sister wives’ really has an ick factor for me because of the sexual issues, but I also think I wouldn’t be able to live with ‘sister wives’ in my house even if they weren’t my husband’s concubines. Who wants some other woman telling her how to run her household?
In “Escape,” Carolyn Jessup affirms my suspicions about too many women in the home. When she’s only eighteen years old, Carolyn is forced to marry a man who is something of an enemy to her family—a man who already has three other wives and will go on to have at least two more (the six that are discussed in the book) and is more than thirty years Carolyn’s senior. OK, so this had more than an ick factor for me—it was just plain gross.
Carolyn’s husband plays his wives off of one another. It’s interesting because all but one can’t stand him, and yet they vie for his affection and are jealous of one another. He alternates sleeping with (and impregnating) them. Carolyn has baby after baby—eight in all—and one of her children is severely disabled. Yet none of the other ‘sister wives’ will help her when she is ill—at one point pregnancy and childbirth almost kill her—because they are envious. They tell her that her child’s disability is God’s judgment on her for being willful and disobedient. The “alpha wife”—the one that Jessop cares for—rules the roost, making the others cook and clean. She beats the children that are not her own. (Kids of the lesser wives have to watch out because life is precarious for them.) When Carolyn’s insides finally fall out and she has a hysterectomy, I thought she’d be saved from sleeping with the dirty old man because, according to the religious tenets of the Fundamentalist Church of Latter Day Saints (FLDS), the point in polygamy is to procreate. But no, Jessop stills demands sex, that is, when he isn’t sending Carolyn off to work in some hole-in-the-wall motel.
Elissa Wall of “Stolen Innocence” has a slightly different story. She is only fourteen when forced to marry. She tries everything she can to get out of it, but the church’s leader, Warren Jeffs, won’t listen. He arranges the marriages based on his visions from God. (He is the community’s prophet—he arranged Carolyn Jessop’s marriage as well.) Elissa’s husband is also young, and she is his first wife. However, the ick factor is there. He’s her first cousin, and one with whom she has never gotten along. He was always mean to her. At fourteen, having lived in a super-protective environment, Elissa knows nothing about sex. Her husband rapes her on a regular basis. She is so afraid of him that she takes to sleeping in a truck.
Elissa has several miscarriages and a still birth. I guessed that all her unborn and just-born babies had died from genetic deformities caused by being the products of first cousins. However, the book doesn’t discuss this. When Elissa does finally break away and marry the man she wants to marry, she has healthy children.
Both books have a lot of detail about the structure of the FLDS society and its leader, Warren Jeffs. I finally had my question about boys answered. (If each man is supposed to have so many wives, aren’t there extra boys, and then men, left over? Yes, there are—they call them lost boys and throw them out on the road to fend for themselves when they are young. This keeps the ratio of men to women low.) When Jeffs is arrested, Elissa is one of the primary witnesses against him in his trial. The situation of the women in the FLDS sect–-to submit to husbands in mind, body and soul—reminds me of the situation of women today in some third world countries. It also reminds me of the novel (so, yes, that means it’s fiction) “The Handmaid’s Tale” by Margaret Atwood. That book is about a not-too-distant future United States after some sort of nuclear event when a religious sect takes over the government and reduces all women to servants and concubines. “Escape” and “Stolen Innocence” remind us that sometimes such things actually happen—and right in our own backyard.
Add comment November 20, 2008
Out of War
“Out of War: True Stories from the Front Lines of the Children’s Movement for Peace in Columbia” by Sara Cameron
Nine chapters of “Out of War’ each discuss one of the child leaders of the Children’s Movement for Peace in Columbia. For many years, Columbia has been torn apart by political factions, drug lords that wrestle for control over regions, gangs and extreme poverty, both rural and urban. In the mid-1990s, UNICEF (a United Nations children’s organization), the Catholic Church and others helped to create the Children’s Peace Movement. The children who tell their stories not only give us a picture of the peace movement, but of the terrible lives they have survived.
Juan Elias’ father and cousin are assassinated one day in the father’s dental office. Juan had hoped to go to work with his father that day, but was late getting ready. Maritza comes from a violent home and although she tries to make peace, she lives a dual life and is caught up in street gangs. Johemir lived alone for eight months when he was only ten years old because his mother had to take a job in another area just to survive. He and others volunteer in the “Return to Happiness” program help small children who are victims of violence—one seven-year-old boy reported having seen his father murdered, cut up, put in a bag and thrown in a river. Unfortunately, stories like this are quite common.
For me, one of the most interesting things about what the teens said about their experiences was how they had learned that revenge didn’t work. Ultimately, many talk about forgiveness and the need to be the ones to end the violence. This idea can relate to violence in other ways—what students might be experiencing here in Southern California—in cities, schools, and in their homes. I hope COHS student will comment on this. What did you think of the ‘children’s referendum’ in which millions of children ages 7-18 voted for the rights to life and peace as their most important rights? How does this help—or does it?
If you enjoyed the book, the author also wrote ‘Natural Enemies,” which is an eco-novel. If you are interested in more information about the Children’s Movement, check the list of websites and resources at the back of the book.
Add comment September 17, 2008
“The Glass Castle”
“The ” by Jeannette Walls
Yes, memoirs of dysfunctional families and abused children are quite popular among adults now as they are among teens. “The Glass Castle” could be grouped into this genre, but it is set apart by the fact that Walls’ parents are not overtly abusive—they seem to love their children—but they are so neglectful that it defies imagination. How the Walls children managed to grow up and escape a life of poverty is a great read.
Walls’ father was an alcoholic and her mother was an (unsuccessful) artist. Both are completely impractical and have no parenting skills. They allow the kids to do as they please and to raise themselves. Jeannette severely burns herself when she is three because she catches fire trying to make herself a hotdog. The dangerous mix of children and fire still doesn’t sink in for the parents, and there are several close encounters throughout the book.
Mrs. Walls has a teaching certificate, but is rarely employed because she doesn’t like the routine or getting up in the morning. She has an excuse for everything about her life and nothing seems to bother her too much. If the family doesn’t have the money to feed its pets, then all the better—the pets are learning survival skills. Rex Walls is very intelligent, but he always has pie-in-the-sky schemes and resorts to alcohol and arguing on the job, which routinely get him fired. He seems to make more money playing poker than he does working. Thus the kids have to learn survival skills just as the pets do. They sleep on cardboard boxes and cover themselves with a plastic raft to keep the rain off when the roof leaks. They scrounge for food and eat out of the schoolyard trashcans. If the family accumulates too much debt—or just gets the itch to move—they ‘skedaddle.’ They don’t pay to have the garbage collected, and it ends up in a large hole the kids had dug in the yard—a hole that was supposed to be for the fountain of the ‘glass castle,’ a dream house that Rex is always modifying plans for and never building.
While the kids are young, they are able to believe in the glass castle of their future. Their father has sometimes delightful ways of disguising his negligence—such as the Christmas when the kids will get no presents, but he takes each of them outside to name a one of the stars in the night sky as their own. However, ultimately, the children must place themselves in reality.
Add comment September 16, 2008
“Running with Scissors” and “A Wolf at the Table”
“Running with Scissors” and “A Wolf at the Table: A Memoir of My Father” by Augustine Burroughs
As I watch students pick out biographies for class assignments, it always occurs to me that there are books you’d like better if you just knew what they were about. It seems that the same few subjects are always selected—Marilyn Monroe, Princess Diana. Even when students choose Martin Luther King, Jr., I know it is because they already know a lot about his life from reading about him every year from fourth grade on.
I’ve asked your teachers if you can read memoirs when assigned biographies and, happily, the answer is yes. The hard thing about finding a memoir is that it won’t be cataloged with the biographies. It will be found wherever its subject is found. So a good book about a boy soldier in modern-day Sierra Leone is cataloged with books on Africa—and you’ll probably never find it. To get some of these good books into your hands, I thought I’d review some of my favorites. So I’ll start with one I just read, “A Wolf at the Table.”
Augustine Burroughs has written several memoirs, the most famous of which is “Running with Scissors,” which was made into a movie. “Running” is one of those crazy books that should make you weep for the terrible life of an emotionally and psychologically abused child, but that makes you laugh out loud as well. In it Burroughs discusses his childhood. His mentally ill mother hands him over to her (rather crazy) psychiatrist who adopts Burroughs. He describes his life in the doctor’s home as a mad house. The family never cleans anything and keeps a Christmas tree up all year. The wife of the psychiatrist is also a psychologically beaten woman who eats dog food as a snack. Though Burroughs is only thirteen years old, he is encouraged in a relationship with a man in his mid-thirties—a relationship that any normal person would regard as child abuse. The psychiatrist arbitrarily offers medication (drugs) to Augustine and makes predictions about the future through ‘Bible dipping” and reading the angles of his stool in the toilet.
Burroughs emerges worse for the wear. He has a second memoir “Dry” in which he discusses his alcoholism. “A Wolf at the Table” is Burroughs’ most recent best seller. Here he goes back in time from his other memoirs to remember his father, a philosophy professor at the University of Massachusetts. Professor Robison is psychologically cruel. He will never show Augustine affection, and in fact, seems to enjoy watching others suffer. Burroughs makes a ‘father’ out of clothes and pillows. His real father kills Augustine’s guinea pig and turns his dog into a violent attack animal that must be euthanized. He calls his son and tells him that he is going to kill him. The fact that Burroughs survived and remained sane, even funny, is a testimony to the human spirit.
Add comment September 16, 2008
