- Paperback: 160 pages
- Publisher: Vintage; Reprint edition (Oct 8 2002)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 0679763430
- ISBN-13: 978-0679763437
- Product Dimensions: 13 x 1 x 20.5 cm
- Shipping Weight: 172 g
- Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars See all reviews (15 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: #467,825 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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Product Details |
Product Description
From Amazon
This isn't a book you'll want to pull out on a crowded train, with clinical terms like clitoris and vulvologist, not to mention earthier ones like the F word, on virtually every page to attract the startled attention of the passenger in the next seat. Bluntly describing her yearlong effort to deal with a searing pain in her vagina, Susanna Kaysen doesn't stint on the details of what this malady did to her relationship with her boyfriend (nothing good), nor is she forgiving of the callousness and stupidity displayed by some of her doctors and various alternative health practitioners. Yet her appalling saga is compulsively readable, thanks to Kaysen's propulsive prose and sharp dialogue. She's particularly good at capturing the way people talk about their ailments over dinner and in the middle of other activities. Conversations with friends ramble from her medical problem to tiger maple furniture in an utterly convincing way, and one darkly funny scene shows a pal urging Kaysen to buy a coral necklace following a particularly horrid visit to the doctor because, "You have to get a nice thing after that appointment." Kaysen's laconic humor keeps the book from seeming self-pitying, though her terseness tends to muffle its emotional impact; she expresses her emotions without really conveying them to the reader in any depth. Nonetheless, the pared-down candor that made her portrait of mental illness so gripping in Girl, Interrupted also distinguishes this account of a decidedly physical affliction. --Wendy Smith
--This text refers to the
Hardcover
edition.
From Publishers Weekly
Eight years ago, Kaysen's affecting story of her two years in a psychiatric hospital, Girl, Interrupted, helped sparked the memoir craze and later became a Hollywood blockbuster. Now Kaysen, also an accomplished novelist (Asa, As I Knew Him; Far Afield), returns with this thin, disappointing chronicle of what happened when "something went wrong" with her vagina. The terse narrative chronicles her quest to determine the cause of and cure for disabling vaginal pain vestibulitis, the medical term for a "sore spot" on the wall of her vagina. The most intriguing element is Kaysen's explosive relationship with an unnamed live-in boyfriend who, despite her pain, pressures her to have intercourse: "I want to fuck you, goddammit, he said, lunging at me, pushing his hand between my legs. I jumped out of bed. I was naked... I ran downstairs. All I could think of was to get away from the bed and from him and his fingers. I pressed my back against the wall in the living room and shook, from cold and the remnants of my desire." Later, sans boyfriend, Kaysen reflects too briefly on how she's changed as her desire for sex evaporates, concluding, "when eros goes away, life gets dull." Stingy with basic facts the reader is left wondering how old she is and how she spends her days (writing? teaching?) the memoir is admirable in its honesty and insights into medicine's limits. (Oct.)Forecast: Already the subject of a New York Times piece suggesting this "autopathography" may become the target of a backlash against such transgressive confessions, Kaysen's slight memoir will spark some controversy, but don't expect Girl, Interrupted-level sales.
Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.
--This text refers to the Hardcover edition.
Inside This Book
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First Sentence
If you have a vagina you know that most of the time it is without sensation. Read the first page
Front Cover | Copyright | Excerpt
If you have a vagina you know that most of the time it is without sensation. Read the first page
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Concordance
Browse Sample PagesConcordance
Front Cover | Copyright | Excerpt
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Most helpful customer reviews
5.0 out of 5 stars
easy to digest medical memoir,
This review is from: The Camera My Mother Gave Me (Paperback)
This is a lighthearted memoir of Kaysen's struggle with a little-known about medical condition she referred to as vestibulitis and a medical field that still has plenty of research to do. Kaysen's sarcastic sense of humor makes for an easy anf un read and lessens the chance of the reader cringing and putting the book down due to society's discomfort with sensitive subjects like this. Kaysen also doesn't gel over her difficulties with the medical field and her boyfriend accepting that her condition wasn't all in her head and the lack or care of knowledge, which anyone has had to deal with can appreciate.
2.0 out of 5 stars
Kaysen invites the world to be her gynecologist,
By annulla "annulla" (Brooklyn, NY United States) - See all my reviews
This review is from: The Camera My Mother Gave Me (Hardcover)
A very odd book, this is a memoir of Kaysen's experiences with an, um, inimate health problem. I now know a lot about her sexual problems and confusion, but little about her as a person - not even how finds the money to support herself. Does she jump out of bed and start writing every day? Does she teach a class? Does she simply live of the profits of her earlier, enormously successful memoir, "Girl, Interrupted"? While the author is clearly very bright, in dealing with her illness she's made a lot of stupid decisions and come to some stupid conclusions. Why, if she wasn't satisifed with the surgeon she consulted, didn't she press him for answers or even get a second opinion? Why did she persist in going to doctors and then rejecting the treatments they proposed? Why *wouldn't* she discuss her medical problems with her boyfriend? Why *wouldn't* she allow him to speak to her doctors? And why, when after a year of enduring her rejection, he finally - in an act of frustration and desperation - becomes more aggressive, does she panic, flee, and describe his actions to all of her friends as "attempted rape"? The book is startling in its frankness about sexual matters, but provides little insight into any other area of the author's life. While I now know a great deal about her inner parts, she never revealed her inner life. At the end, I couldn't say that I ever understood or even liked the author. I guess the best way to summarize it is to say that in this book, Kaysen invites the world to be her gynecologist - not her friend.
5.0 out of 5 stars
Excellent! Someone speaks up!,
By A Customer
This review is from: The Camera My Mother Gave Me (Hardcover)
'The camera my mother gave me' is a fabulous read about Kaysen's experience with Vestibulitis - a condition that of the vulva that is rarely spoken or written about due to its intimate nature - despite the thousands, perhaps millions of women who suffer from the disease - mostly in silence.This book is wonderfully written in a sarcastic, witty manner that will appeal not only to people with Vulvar Pain conditions - I'd recommend it to anyone. As a fellow Vestibulitis sufferer, I related to all her experiences, especially her frustrating attempts to find the answers from various health proffesionals who lack the knowledge to treat this terrible condition - mostly due to the lack of research and the wide variety of causes and symptoms. I must warn all Vesitbulitis/Vulvodynia sufferers NOT to seek the answers from this book!! I made that mistake. I was devasted to find that the book ends with Kaysen calling off her search for the solution and resolving to live with her condition. Although that was a perfectly suitable ending to the book, it is not the answer I was looking for. I refuse to live with this condition and will not give up until I find the cure. So, laugh and cry along with Kaysen, celebrate her courage in writing this book, be encouraged in your efforts to speak up about your condition, but turn instead to support groups for companionship along your journey. I hope more and more women will speak up and demand a better understanding of vulvar pain disorders among the medical community and the public. We need answers! Thank you Susanna Kaysen!! I hope you are rid of this awful condition!
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