Oh the Glory of it All by Sean Wilsey

I'm suffering from a bit of a book hangover - from a memoir no less!

I just finished Sean Wilsey's "Oh the Glory of it All" and my thoughts immediately went back to Sean's mother's memoir. I went back to review it first on Goodreads and wrote this:

I just finished Sean Wilsey's "Oh the Glory of it All", which has made me come back to this book and write a brief summary of my impressions. I read this book 3 year ago. Some one gave me the book, saying she couldn't think of anyone else who would want to read it. Hmmm.... Anyway, I started reading with no prior knowledge of the people or events in the memoir. As I was reading, I felt like a looky-loo driving by a horrible car accident. Some parts were so difficult to read. I wanted to scream at these people! I remembering googling the people in the book to find out who they were and having a difficult time putting down the book because I wanted to find out how it all came to an end.  I'm glad I read Pat's memoir because it led me to Sean's, which I loved. Sean's was actually published first. If you read one, you need to read both. If you love to read memoirs, these are great to read together and would make for great book club discussions.

Then I went on to review Sean's memoir:

Oddly enough it is almost 3 years to the day that I finished the memoir "Oh the Hell of It All" by Pat Montandon, Sean's mother, which led me to this book. "Oh the Glory of it All" is Sean's memoir covering the same time period and was actually published first. And of course, it is Sean's story. I have stated that I only give 5 stars to books I would reread, and truthfully I probably won't reread this one. But Sean's ability to bare his soul and emotions relating his truly heartbreaking childhood and then show such astute reflection and insight at the end, makes this memoir worthy of 5 stars. So many parts of this book are hard to read, just like his mother's memoir, but I found myself wanting to know how he became who he is today. If you have read "Oh the Hell of it All" or Dave Eggers' "A Heartbreaking Work of a Staggering Genius" you need to read this book. If you haven't read Dave Eggers' memoir, I highly recommend it.

So as with all the books I write about in this blog, I am always struck by certain passages that speak to me in some ways. Here they are:

     Kids are trusting and wise and I cannot think of a less useful combination to be born with. The wisdom lets children know who they are. And then the trust lets everyone else take that knowledge away.  p.443

     It's funny how easy it is to take things away from children. It only takes desire. So easy - to confuse and make kids bad, to hurt and get them lost. It is a snap for even the weakest, dullest adult. Kids have no power. Only emotions. Though everyone remembers the power of their childish emotions so well. They echo on through your whole life. Down a corridor until you arrive at a room full of them. They can push you far, far into your life before you are even aware of them, let alone reconsider them.
     Which raises the question: If parents have absolute power over children, how can that not corrupt?
     And yet there was something childlike about Mom and Dad - even as they destroyed my childhood. p.444

     I feel as all deep mourners must feel when they grieved for a loved one and all they want to do is keep them in their heart and someone wants to talk about something fucking else. p.446

     The writing had to stop. Maybe it's possible to put things in the past by leaving them there. p.449

     And that's when I realized I was done with this book.
     At a certain point research is no different from running. I had done plenty of both. Eventually you've got to stop, make a leap, and leave the ground behind. p.475

     I'd made peace with Mom and Dad. I'd never make peace with Dede. But there was a peace in knowing that. And in knowing who I was.
     A memoir, at its heart, is written in order to figure out who you are.
     This one started as the story of Amity. .....To write about Amity I had to go back to Cascade, Woodhall, St. Mark's. In each case I was received with a kindness that did not exist when I'd been a student. Was this me changing or them changing? With this question came the realization that I wasn't really writing a book about schools. I kept saying I was, because it seemed like the simplest explanation, and I couldn't stand the word "memoir" - a word that made people look at me dubiously and say, "Aren't you a little young?" (though I wasn't) - but I wasn't. This book has been about identity. Identity is the theme. Knowing who you are. My relationship with everyone in this book changed and evolved. And I'm grateful to everyone in this book ...... for making me who I am. That's why I thanked Dad in his coffin. That's why I've dedicated this book to my mother. Dad and Mom and Dede all shaped and played with my identity. Dad knew who he was in business and in the helicopter. Mom knew who she was when telling a story, giving a gift, or dazzling an audience. Dede, I have failed to understand. As a child I was tricked into loving her, and as a teenager I wanted to stick my fingers between her legs and rip her open like a fortune cookie. I don't know what I thought that fortune would have said. But it took the unlikely combination of the three of them - mother, father, stepmother - to make me who I am.
     If the three of them hadn't been so consistently themselves, it might have turned out otherwise. This book might have been unwritten, and I might be living in the beautiful city where I grew up......
     This book is the identity I've made - a better shot at salvation that trying to fix my father's mistakes. Though the decision was made for me.
     I can't wait to write about something besides myself.

     I hope my son has a life of his own.  p.476

The Vacationers by Emma Straub

This is a great character driven novel.

He wanted the children to remain uncomplicated with each other, though he knew it was futile. Parenting adults wasn't at all like parenting kids, when the whole merry band was inclined to believe you, just because. p. 42

All four Posts held their breath simultaneously, each wishing for the moment to last. Families were nothing more than hope cast out in a wide net, everyone wanting only the best. Even the poor souls who had children in an attempt to rescue a dying marriage were doing so out of a misguided hopefulness. p.269

There was nothing in life harder or more important than agreeing every morning to stay the course, to go back to your forgotten self so many years ago, and to make the same decision. Marriages, like ships, needed steering, and steady hands at the wheel. p. 292

The House of Sixty Fathers by Meindert Dejong

This Newberry Honor book is definitely dated. It was written in 1956. Today's students would probably find it hard to read and relate to. I enjoyed it. As a bonus it has pictures by Maurice Sendak.

     "But would my mother and father still be in such a town of battle?"
     The guerrilla smiled a thin smile. "If I know a father, he will wait until the last moment in the small hope that you may return. And if I know a mother, she will wait until the Japanese are in the streets and their bayonets at her back before she gives up a first born son." p. 104

There sat the lieutenant half turned, and he did not understand what his mother said. Ah, but he did understand. He understood! The heart understands without words.  p. 189

The Boston Girl by Anita Diamant

If you treat every question like you've never heard it before, your students feel like you respect them and everyone learns a lot more. Including the teacher. p.120

When a shy person smiles, it's like the sun coming out. p. 149

The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows

This is the first book I have read written in epistolary form. I thoroughly enjoyed it and was fascinated how the authors brought to light the nuances of each character through the letters they wrote.

I find these passages from the book so true:

Perhaps there is some secret sort of homing instinct in books that brings them to their perfect readers. How delightful if that were true. p. 10

That's what I love about reading: one tiny thing will interest you in a book, and that tiny thing will lead you onto another book, and another bit there will lead you onto a third. It's geometrically progressive - all with no end in sight, and for no other reason than sheer enjoyment. p.12

The Sisters: The Saga of the Mitford Family by Mary S. Lovell

This was a fascinating read. Mary S. Lovell succeeds in making history very readable. It is informative and was a pleasure to read. Lovell's style of writing makes me want to read more of her biographies. I felt like the following quote sums up much of what comes through in this account of one family.

"Children sometimes appear to believe that parents have an inbuilt guide to perfect parenting and that an inability to deliver what they want or need is a deliberate act of neglect. But parenting is a hit-and-miss affair, depending on many ingredients: the age of the parents, the relationship between them, the behavior of their own parents towards them and their reaction to it, and also the demeanour of the child. Parents, too, apparently often have an inbuilt confidence that their children, given the same upbringing they themselves received, will grow up with the same values and beliefs. But there is no magic formula to good parenting and parents get only one crack at it with each child. They cannot rehearse and go back, learning from past mistakes if they get it wrong. Invariably, too, children grow up with a ragbag of selective memories." p. 61

State of Wonder by Ann Patchett

I love the way Patchett writes. Her novels always have layers that peel away as the story progresses. She is not afraid to leave some unanswered questions at the end that make you think and draw your own conclusions. And as you read, you are making discoveries along with the characters.
A few passages that made me think:

... and Marina would have to work very hard not to roll her eyes because her mother had explained that eye-rolling was the height of rudeness and was never an appropriate response, even to very stupid questions. p. 35

     "I never say it to them," she said, looking towards the slightly open pantry door in the direction of her boys and their television, "that I'm not sure he's dead. I know they need to have one answer, even if it's the worst answer you could think of. Hope is a horrible thing, you know. I don't know who decided to package hope as a virtue because it's not. It's a plague. Hope is like walking around with a fishhook in your mouth and somebody just keeps pulling it and pulling it. Everybody thinks I'm a train wreck because Anders is dead but it's really so much worse than that. I'm still hoping that this Dr. Swenson, for some reason I couldn't possibly put together, has lied about everything, that she's keeping him, or she's lost him somewhere."  p. 43

.... But Marina had been a very good student and a very good doctor and a very good employee and lover and friend and when someone asked her to do something she operated on the principle they had asked because it was important. She succeeded in life because she had so rarely declined any request made of her, how would the Amazon be different? p. 47

.... - she found herself siding with Alan because there was much in his single-minded devotion to a mentor that sounded a familiar note. In this life we love who we love. There were some stories in which facts were very nearly irrelevant. p. 233

     There was no one clear point of loss. It happened over and over again in a thousand small ways and the only truth there was to learn was that there was no getting used to it. Karen Eckman had wanted Marina to go to Brazil to find out what had happened to her husband, but now that she was here she understood what Dr. Swenson had told her in the restaurant that first night after the opera: it could have been anything, any fever, any bite. It never was remarkable that Anders had died; the remarkable thing was that the rest of them were managing to live in a place for which they were so fundamentally unsuited. Karen had wanted to believe that knowing what Anders had died of and where he was buried would make a difference, but it wouldn't and it didn't. p.269