- Mass Market Paperback: 208 pages
- Publisher: Plume; Reissue edition (Jun 7 2001)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 0452282543
- ISBN-13: 978-0452282544
- Product Dimensions: 20.5 x 13.6 x 1.2 cm
- Shipping Weight: 177 g
- Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars See all reviews (10 customer reviews)
|
||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||
Product Details |
Product Description
From Publishers Weekly
Relentlessly honest, Martin's account of growing up with an abusive parent is wise and healing. In 1956, when the author was a year old, his father lost both hands in a mechanical corn-picker on their Illinois farm. That tragic accident transformed Roy Martin into a bitter man who harbored a deep, corrosive rage that he vented on his son in sadistic beatings. Generous and friendly with neighbors and relatives, Roy was a strict and hypercritical parent. Though father and son enjoyed small pleasures together, Martin remained timid and fearful that he would never measure up, and he desperately tried to love and connect with the father whom he frequently despised. He walked a tightrope between his father's brutality and the abiding compassion of his soft-spoken, gentle mother, a schoolteacher who "lacked the courage to confront my father's rage or to escape it." While Martin never calls his mother an enabler or his father an abuser, by age 16, years of family dysfunction had turned him into a shoplifter, burglar and arsonist, putting him close to "becoming ruined beyond return." Martin, whose story collection The Least You Need to Know (winner of the Mary McCarthy Prize for short fiction) explored troubled father-son relationships, taps directly into his own psychic pain in this understated memoir. Both his parents are now dead, yet this moving family album, suffused with forgiveness and reconciliation, binds up the wounds. (June) FYI: Martin teaches creative writing at the University of North Texas and edits the American Literary Review.
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
From Library Journal
The author of a book of short stories (The Least You Need To Know), Martin has written a memoir to read slowly and savor. He is born to an older couple. His father has hooks instead of hands owing to a farm accident, and his elementary-school teacher mother has trouble disciplining her students and soon loses her job in their rural community. They move to a more urban locale so that she can continue to teach and bring in money but eventually return to the area of their farm and families. Martin's father feels shame and rage over losing his hands, and Martin, who lacks the athletic and mechanical skills his father once possessed, is embarrassed by his own and his parents' physical shortcomings. Over the course of the memoir, Martin shows how he and his father learn to overcome their shame and control their rage. The honest and straightforward description of their relationship and their obvious affection for each other completely involve the reader. Highly recommended for all libraries.
-Gina Kaiser, Univ. of the Sciences, Philadelphia
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
-Gina Kaiser, Univ. of the Sciences, Philadelphia
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Inside This Book
(Learn More)
Browse and search another edition of this book.
Browse and search another edition of this book.
Tag this product(What's this?)Think of a tag as a keyword or label you consider is strongly related to this product.
Tags will help all customers organize and find favorite items. |
Customer Reviews
|
Share your thoughts with other customers:
|
||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Most helpful customer reviews
5.0 out of 5 stars
Fathers and Sons,
By A Customer
This review is from: From Our House A Memoir (Mass Market Paperback)
This is a DYNAMITE memoir. It explores the complex relationship between fathers and sons, the way even our best intentions can lead to violence, wounds both physical and spiritual, and, in the face of all of that, the improbable, redemptive quality of love. The writing here is beautiful. After reading this book, I came to see my own father differently--in a way that hadn't presented itself to me before. For me, that's what good writing does, it twists our lives around and shows them to us in a way we hadn't thought to see them. Lee Martin's memoir does just that. It is Highly recommended.
3.0 out of 5 stars
A good read.,
By
This review is from: From Our House A Memoir (Mass Market Paperback)
I read it, and I liked it. However, I would not give it more than three stars simply because I doesn't merit a four or five star rating. Think about when you rate a hotel, restaurant, movie, or play, you rate these things based on your enjoyment/entertainment for what it costs. This is the same way I rated this book. It was good, but not the absolute, hands-down best out there. From looking at the other reviews, it seems that most of the reviewers are the author's friends or neighbors(look how many are from Texas), hence the five star ratings. Be honest. It is a good read, but don't be swayed by the pretentious few.
5.0 out of 5 stars
An Example of the Grace of Memoir,
By "staratlas" (Los Gatos, CA United States) - See all my reviews
This review is from: From Our House A Memoir (Mass Market Paperback)
Lee Martin is a writer who cares greatly about exploring the intricacies of human nature and our relationships with others. He gives his readers a compelling story of his struggling relationship with his family as well as his own self. I, too, am a former student of Martin's and am sorry to see that another reviewer misunderstands and misrepresents Martin's true vision, not only as a writer, but as a teacher. If you want to experience a master writer who brings the complexity of emotions and actions of a family trying to live in the sometimes lovely and sometimes harsh space they've created, then read this book.
Share your thoughts with other customers: Create your own review
Want to see more reviews on this item?
|
Most recent customer reviews |
Listmania!
Look for similar items by category
Look for similar items by subject
Feedback
Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?
