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Reviews by Elizabeth T. (Salem, MA)

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Ariadne
by Jennifer Saint

I love this myth, but ... (5/18/2021)

The minute I opened this book, I was drawn into one of my most favorite myths ... and from a woman's point of view. Author Jennifer Saint took a brave chance for a first-time novelist -- retelling an ancient myth has been done so many times by authors far more famous and …more

Mighty Justice: My Life in Civil Rights
by Dovey Johnson Roundtree , Katie McCabe

Interesting in So Many Ways! (10/3/2019)

Despite its solemn title, Mighty Justice: My Life in Civil Rights is lively, engaging, and stirring on so many levels. First, it's a memoir by Dovie J Rountree, who earned her degree from Howard Law School in 1950, when black female attorneys were virtually unheard of, and …more

Yale Needs Women: How the First Group of Girls Rewrote the Rules of an Ivy League Giant
by Anne Gardiner Perkins

A Glimpse of My Past -- sort of (7/23/2019)

I loved this book from beginning to end, partly because I had just graduated from college when Yale opened its doors to women. I visited Yale in the bad old days when we Smithies piled onto the bus each weekend to see our beaux in New Haven. I was naive enough to be envious …more

Travelers: A Novel
by Helon Habila

What a Surprise! (6/3/2019)

It was an absolute honor to read this book and a double honor to review it. The author's style is so flawless and transparent that it disappears; you feel you're suddenly in the very scene that is unfolding. The characters are members of the African diaspora, from Nigeria, …more

The Midnight Watch: A Novel of the Titanic and the Californian
by David Dyer

Lovely, thoughtful first novel (3/15/2016)

As the Titanic sinks in in less than 2 hours on April 14,1912, the crew on a nearby ship, the Californian, tragically miss the short window of time to come to the rescue. The narrator, a journalist who specializes in stories about deadly accidents, explores the mistakes, …more

What Lies Between Us
by Nayomi Munaweera

SO beautiful, SO sad (12/12/2015)

What Lies Between Us completely swept me up in the beauty of the language and the passion of the main character, a young girl from Sri Lanka who had a tortured past from which she could never quite escape. The author's description of the abuse and what followed from it as …more

Summer House with Swimming Pool
by Herman Koch

A Disturbing but Addictive Read! (8/24/2015)

After reading three pages of this book, Herman Koch became this summer's "it" author for me. I was completely engrossed for days, then I ran to download his earlier novel, "The Dinner," and ripped through that one, too. But -- here are my serious reservations -- I would …more

Irritable Hearts: A PTSD Love Story
by Mac McClelland

A Wild Ride Through Trauma and Recovery (2/2/2015)

Irritable Hearts: A PTSD Love Story is an irritable but utterly fascinating memoir by Mac McClelland, a journalist in her young thirties, who specializes in stories about breaking crises in chaotic and dangerous environments. She went to Haiti in 2010 to cover the rape …more epidemic encouraged by the island's deeper dip into lawlessness and poverty caused by the monster earthquake earlier in the year. During that visit, she saw something so horrific (even in the book, she does not give details), that it significantly rearranged the neurons in her brain in the way all trauma does. The book narrates the two-plus years of disregulation in emotion, thought and behavior that resulted in the awful loneliness, roiling emotions, disconnection, and overwhelm that every trauma victim suffers.

"Irritable Hearts" is a name given in 1871 by a doctor named Da Costa to the battle fatigue found in soldiers after the American Civil War. I call the book itself "irritable" because I found the author, her story, and her writing completely annoying for the first 90 pages. I become absorbed by any memoir far more quickly if I immediately find the narrator reliable and likeable. At first I found Mac neither. This woman went by herself to a country that was without a functioning police, government, or infrastructure. She hired male guides and taxi drivers she hardly knew to go visit rape shelters. She began an immediate affair with a French soldier she met in the hotel swimming pool in that previously-described country. She presented herself right away as hard-drinking and heavy-smoking. And she was surprised to be exposed to trauma? Seriously? As a woman who has traveled widely by herself, I judged her all over the place. As far as I was concerned, Mac violated the major commandment of women who travel alone: First, invite no harm. Her breathtaking disregard for her own safety made my hair stand on end. Also, it took work to get used to her writing style, a jumble of convoluted sentences, moving back and forth in time, imparting far too many ideas all at once.

But I didn't quit reading. And after the first 100 pages, after she convinced me that staging rough sex with a male friend, and writing about it for Mother Jones, actually helped her with her PTSD, a change in my attitude occurred. Completely counter-intuitively, I developed a grudging respect for her. Which grew. I got used to her writing style. I admired the way she chose wise and knowledgeable therapists to help her. Her fight with her disordered mind seemed to last and last, but she never gave up.

My faith in her journalistic skills increased with each page. In the midst of this crazy story, she had read, and managed to include, important material from the major historical and psychological literature on trauma. She'd really done her homework. I know this because I am a psychotherapist, and one reason I chose to review this book was that I wish to deepen my specialty in trauma by learning about it from the inside out. Mac's story contributed layers of insight. As her story unfolded, I saw the links between her disordered thoughts and emotions and those of my own traumatized clients. I saw the societal denial and the stigmatizing attitude she describes in my own reactions. This book is not for everyone. But if you've ever been interested as to why soldiers with PTSD seek redeployment, why "rescued" prostitutes return to "the life," why drug addicts that have been clean for 10 years can snap and end up in an alley with a needle in their arms, you will appreciate the insights in this book.

Oh, and by the way, that ill-considered affair that began in a Haitian swimming pool? It lasted, despite the fact that Mac lived in San Francisco and Nick in rural France. He was exactly the healing influence she needed, able to hang in while her moods swung wildly, because he himself was trauma survivor. It was another example of the "across a crowded room" phenomenon, the mysterious way people sense their mutual compatibility instantly. Read this book if you dare. (less)

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