Tremor has many elements of a quest narrative. She recounts the many stages of her search to reach an acceptance of her ‘movement disorder’ by enduring social embarrassments, often feeling professionally vulnerable and overcoming her fears of being judged by others. Miraculously, Voumard’s good humour, dignity and empathy for others never waver, which results in a moving and thought-provoking memoir.
Tag: memoir
A review of The Third Gilmore Girl by Kelly Bishop
As her memoir shows, Kelly Bishop (formerly “Carole”) brought years of experience to the role of Emily. Those of us who were entertained by this determined fictional character will find Kelly as resolute in real life as she was in that role. Her lifelong pursuit of her dream is inspiring.
A Review of Finally Autistic: Finding My Autism Diagnosis as a Middle-Aged Female by Theresa Werba
Werba’s personal reflections and anecdotes are firmly rooted in data: an autism assessment, school report cards that highlight her “unsatisfactory” levels of self-control, and even developmental reports from when she was in preschool (all reproduced in full within these pages). Her blending of subjective reflections with objective data points make this a unique work.
A review of The Book of Happiness by Joseph Mark Glazner
At its core this is a book about the entirely human path to responsibility and personal accountability. From a very early age the author parents emphasized self-sufficiency, doing him an immense favor that parents rarely bestow upon their children today.
A review of Getting to Know Death: A Meditation by Gail Godwin
She jumps back and forth, including a scholarly essay, poems and sayings by literary figures, and tributes to significant people in her life, both past and present. Indirectly, she offers suggestions as to how to handle our loved-ones’ deaths, and ultimately, our own.
A review of Zero at the Bone by Christian Wiman
Poetry gives suffering form, and giving suffering form is an antidote to despair. Yet content matters, too. For Wiman, much confessionalism is “an idolatry of suffering…an outrage that no person (or group) has suffered as we have, or simply a solipsistic withdrawal that leaves us maniacally describing every detail of our cells.
The Garden Against Time: In Search of a Common Paradise by Olivia Laing
Throughout The Garden Against Time, Laing returns to the concepts of gates and walls: while she sees the need for secrecy, or at least privacy, as having been crucial for the formation of what she calls a queer “counter-state” (213) in the face of oppression, she is well aware that borders and barriers to access are tools of oppression as well.
A review of Seeing Through by Ricky Ian Gordon
Even in the midst of this plague and the terrible death of so many beautiful people, most of whom I had a crush on as a teenager, there is always humour and a sense of the creative transformation which makes this book a constant joy to read. Ricky’s descriptions are so apt, darkly funny and full of delicious gossip, you want to commit them to memory for re-use.
A review of A Fire at the Center by Karen Van Fossan
What Van Fossan delivers is life—a progress report on a directed but unfinished life, painfully acquainted with ambiguity and exquisitely cast in vibrant minimalist prose. Ultimately, the shadow of the book left in the reader’s mind is neither bound wrists nor angry fist but palms, unchastened, reverently touching.
A review of Fugitive by Simon Tedeschi
Fugitive is a moving and thought-provoking book. It is pithy and at times, funny, full of minor transgressions, extensive scholarship, music and yes, poetry. There is so much compacted into each of these small pieces and yet Fugitives is airy, with enough space to encompass contradiction, breath and above all, silence, another recurring theme.