Word: memoirs
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...subtitle is misleading. Denis Johnson’s Seek is not so much a collection of journalistic efforts as it is a fragmented memoir, diffracting observations of fringe elements at home and abroad through the prism of the author’s opinions. He travels to biker revivals, Alaska, the American Southwest and Liberia. He recounts his brief Boy Scout experiment in the Philippines. He marvels at the intersection between his values and those of violent militia members. And while Johnson always remains the outsider—a stranger attempting self-understanding through observing the natives—the strength...
...might expect a mother's memoir about a handicapped daughter to be a tale of tragedy or an account of a miraculous breakthrough. Exiting Nirvana (Little, Brown; 225 pages; $23.95), Clara Claiborne Park's new book about her autistic daughter Jessy, is neither--or perhaps it is both. Jessy's autism is incurable, but her story is nonetheless one of triumph, of a thousand small skills arduously acquired and a thousand more yet to be mastered...
Hartmann quotes that line in his fascinating, not yet published memoir, Life as Death. He knows some people don't respond to electroshock, and he understands the risk he takes when he undergoes it (his most recent treatment was last summer; he currently takes medications). A tiny number of patients die: the National Institute of Mental Health says the figure is 1 in 10,000, about the same as any procedure involving anesthesia. Antishock activists cite Texas statistics from the mid-'90s, saying about 1 in 320 electroshock patients died in the two weeks after treatment, though the deaths weren...
...hard to know what steps people will take when despair rules. Novelist William Styron has long battled depression; his 1990 memoir about it, Darkness Visible, inspired Hartmann and millions of others. Last summer Styron underwent electroshock for the first time. He had asked several prominent psychiatrists about the option, and they agreed it could help. It didn't, though he says he didn't suffer any negative side effects. "Anyone who would ban it is ridiculously off base," he says...
...almost hear the pitch for Fisher's screenplay, currently in production and now fleshed out in his memoir: Dickens in Cleveland! The Color Purple, but true and male and set in the 1960s! The facts of his life have a movie-of-the-week ring: relentlessly abusive foster care; redemption through military service; and irrepressible intellect. But detailed accounting distinguishes the tale, and Fisher's searing, luminous portrait of his childhood transcends the familiar, as does his retroactive (and likely hard-won) tenderness toward the boy no one else loved...