Abuse Books

The rage I felt inside picturing my own child in a house of darkness hoping I would rescue her hit me more deeply than anything I have ever read. The author characterizes the people involved so well, I felt like I knew them.

I was really moved from the beginning. I was very impressed by the book. How one character saves the other is truly from and about God. I had tears in my eyes at the finish of the book. God will use this book for healing. The overall spirit of the book, is that there is a God.

What an intimate read! It's definitely novel material. What an appropriate way to end a wonderful story. I can actually visualize and sense what the characters went through.

When you pick it up, you can't put it down. How beautiful that there was that healing. It touches your heart and gave you hope. I actually want to know one of the main characters. It took me so long to compose myself after finishing the story. But I felt so good inside. I definitely wanted more. What a wonderful spiritual journey.

How the author captured the intricate part of the three main characters healing with no one left behind is the freedom any person of childhood trauma hopes for. My beliefs went to a different level of hope as the story evolved. The story touched my emotions so deeply. I felt closer to the author and the characters The ending totally surprised me and I cried for quite some time trying to process it all. It is a story of trauma, secrets, unconditional love, and the need for one another that we all internally hope to get in life. There was no codependency in these relationships, but a genuine dependence on God.

This is the second best book that I have ever read. The first is Karen Day's next book (No Cream Puffs) coming out in May.

I happened to get into bed late the night I read Tall Tales, intending to read a bit, get a taste for the story, and put it down until the next night. Karen Day is responsible for my night of not enough sleep - I actually didn't put it down until it was finished. Tall Tales is one of those rare books that take you gently but firmly by the hand and don't let go until you reach the end. I read with trepidation and hope, waiting to see what would happen.

The beauty of this book lies in its realism. Meg and her family could be your neighbors or perhaps even your own family. Karen Day is a master of creating characters who rise from the pages and seem to have life and breath of their own. You will continue to think and wonder about them after you have closed the book. Isn't that the hallmark of a great book?!

As an adult who also reads novels for young adults, I found the book's utter lack of the cloying sentimentality which can creep into the genre so refreshing. People of any age will enjoy this story and I highly recommend it.

Kudos to Karen Day for writing such an accurate and upbeat book about a family struggling with alcoholism! Tall Tales is not preachy or showy and that's what's so brilliant about it. The power of the story lies in its understated and subtle wisdom. How challenging to write a book for middle schoolers which includes a dysfunctional family without making it "a downer". And how refreshing to see a nurturing mother trying her best without being blamed. As a child psychologist, I love how accurately Day portays the ways that Meg copes with her family's secrets. Day's hypnotic message that its OK to want more out of life and love comes through loud and clear. I hope that young teens read this book and see how empowering it can be to enlist others to find a way out of family pain.

Karen Day's TALL TALES tells of Meg, starting sixth grade in yet another new school, and determined to find a best friend. When she meets Grace she believes she's finally found that friend - but Meg has family secrets, and must invent some big lies to hide them. A moving story of what makes for friendship - and what's involved in lying - evolves.

"Tall Tales" isn't flashy. It doesn't leap off of the bookshelf and start screaming about how necessary it is for you to buy buy buy. There are no sparkles, flashy lights, or marauding dragons in evidence. It's slow. Soft. A book manages to tell its tale in a supremely careful fashion. I'll level with you here: It's good but it doesn't stick in your brain the way a gaudy Clique novel might. If you're looking for fireworks and lightshows, direct your attention elsewhere pronto. If, instead, you want a well-written title about friends, lies, and family secrets "Tall Tales" is a decent way to go. A good book.

Meg wants a friend. Badly. Desperately, you might say. When she and her family move to Lake Haven, Indiana it isn't the first move Meg's had to put up with. It's not even the second, third, or fourth. With a father that continually claims to have stopped drinking, Meg and her siblings learned long ago that having friends meant keeping them as far away from their home life as possible. Meg's gone one step further, though. She's come up with elaborate lies to fill in the unassuming or embarrassing gaps in her life. When she begins to grow close to a girl in her class by the name of Grace, it's like she's found her other half. But how long will Meg be able to cover for the fact that much of what she's been telling Grace is a lie? Soon enough she could learn that sometimes the most outrageous tales you come up with are the ones you tell to yourself.

It takes a while to figure out that Meg's a liar. When you first hear her spout off a whopper about her dad being a doctor from Tasmania, you go for it. I mean, it wasn't so crazy a lie that I didn't believe it myself. So convincing was the lie, in fact, that I thought that Chapter One was narrated by one girl and Chapter Two by another. I actually had to flip back and forth for a while to better determine what was going on. So maybe a little clarification would have helped the writing at the start. For example, the first time we meet Meg's little sister Abby she isn't necessarily introduced. It's one of those narrative techniques where a character just gradually comes into focus as the story continues. The fact that this book acknowledges the truly slow nature of change can either be seen as the story's strength or weakness. Nothing here happens too quickly. Make of that what you will.

With the veritable plethora of broken families in children's literature, it's funny that I can't come up with another children's title containing an alcoholic family member to compare to this book. I don't really have to, of course. Day has a good handle on the situation and presents it accurately here. You can watch the charm of the alcoholic and his heartfelt apologies post-abuse. Every antagonist should display multiple sides if a children's book is going to carry any weight at all. It's all the more effective, then, to have the father dancing giddily with the mom one moment and then shaking the daughter violently for dropping some hamburgers the next. The writing is nice as well. Certain descriptions will sometimes catch the eye unawares. Sentences like, "Her shoulders fill her sweaters until there doesn't seem to be one millimeter of space left."

By the way, as a former resident of Kalamazoo I was amused that the town was (in a sense) one of the final straws in finally deciding to try to get away from the dad in this story. All that aside, "Tall Tales" isn't necessarily forgettable, but it does demand a bit of hand selling and word-of-mouth. Consider it subdued and supremely readable.

This is an absolutely unforgettable book because of Francisco's honesty and openess, as well as the clarity and beauty of her writing. I read this book a year ago, and have read many books since then, but the author's story of perserverance has stayed with me.

As difficult as it was for me to read this book, due to it's similarity to my experience, I found it to be so extremely compelling--I couldn't put it down! Ms.Francisco has an incredible command of the English language and was able to communicate in painful detail, her inner-most thoughts and feelings, before, during and after the rape. As I read this book, I went through and highlighted many many many passages that I felt pertained directly to me.....so that my husband could read it and gain better insight into what I was and still am thinking. This is a wonderful, amazing book, that both rape survivors and non-rape survivors can benefit from.

What courage to share this experience for the benefit of many. As more women share the experience of rape and the devastating affects on the lives of the victims the more we can do to help. Another great story is Ultimate Power Enemy Within the Ranks by a woman officer in the Army. Both are telling and offer hope for the many victims who need help.

This was truly a great book. I could identify so well with all that was said. I had all the members of my family read it and have recommended it to many because it is of such high quality.

This was the 1st book I read on my road to recovery 35 years after having been a victim. It helped give me the courage, strength and hope to move forward toward on my own journey towards healing.

Klein, Michael. "Track Conditions: A Memoir", University of Wisconsin Press, 2003.

Memorable Memoirs

Amos Lassen and Literary Pride

Michael Klein is an award winning poet and should win awards for his wonderful memoir "Track Conditions". It is both shameless and fascinating. After he followed his lover to an Ohio race track, Michael Klein began a three year career as a groom in the world of horse racing. He managed to bond with the 1984 Kentucky Derby winner, Swale. However he was plague with alcoholism and deeply concerned about his relationship with his lover which was on the skids as well as memories of having been abused as a child. His memoir is a story written from the heart and it is a tale of resilience. Using the race track as a metaphor for life, he shares his joys and his pain.
This is some of the most beautiful writing I have ever read but that does not mean that Klein does not get down and gritty. He holds nothing back as he illuminates his life. His life is not a pretty story--it is filled with excesses--but even so it is beautifully rendered. Here is an honest recreation of a life that is compelling.
We read as Klein succumbs to alcohol and enters a depressive state over lost love, dependency and casual random sex. It is never easy to read coming-of-age stories that are filled with pain but this is a coming-of-age story not to be missed.
It is likewise a story about horses and with the equestrian background we read about a relationship between tow men that are in the midst of deterioration.
The world of horse racing is a homophobic place but Klein managed to survive it and move up along the circuit as a groom. He discovered an affinity for horses and loved them as they loved him. We get to look into the world of horses and learn things that the average person never knows. He refers to the secrets of the world of horses as "racetrack society. The world of horse racing is a gritty and unreal world but it is not just that world that Klein tells us of. He writes of how little was available to a young homosexual with very limited means.
Written in the past tense, the memoir puts a distance between reader and writer from his beginnings until 1984 with quite a shocking ending. Klein makes no evaluations or judgments--he leaves that to the reader.
It is Klein's openness that makes this book so good. He defies the usual conventions of narrative and he is a writer to be cherished. The book is unique and very special and in no way follows the styles of other coming out stories. It is harrowing tale of redemption written by a poet in prose. The chapters are short and amazing and we realize early that there is little chance of resolution to be found. It is not a tell-all memoir--rather it is a half-told life and has something for everyone. It is not a book just for gays but rather a small life story that looms large.

Being a straight nursing student who lives in small town america,I wasn't sure I would relate to this book. But the writing and the openess of the author surpasses any differences between our lives. An amazing book.

Michael defies narrative convention while achieving its goals in his long prose poem/memoir/story. His is a story of triumph: whether found covered in ash and velvet and 100 dollar bills or perhaps in the spotlight of literary praise. Either way this story helped save me. Michael is a writer I respect and emulate.

donaldahearn@hotmail.com

This book is so unique and special -- not at all your typical gay coming out story. There are horses here and the tactile world of the racetrack and Klein's lyrical and spare prose adds just the right kind of music to a poignant and harrowing redemption tale.

Oprah, for a million little reasons, you chose the wrong memoir for your book club.

In an age where honesty in memoir seems to be a rare commodity, TRACK CONDITIONS is probably one of the most honest, compelling, and underrated books in print.

A fascinating glimpse into author Michael Klein's downward spiral into alcoholism, lost love, dependency, and casual sex, this lyrical memoir is not an easy read-never easy to read about another person's coming-of-age psychic pain. But this memoir is a must-read.

A real-life thoroughbred horse story, from a former groom's point of view, this memoir focuses on the deteriorating relationship between two young men in the midst of their own personal crises.

In 1979, Klein, a confirmed New Yorker, desperately followed his lover Richard Coatney into the homophobic underworld of thoroughbred racing, beginning his career as a horse walker at River Downs in Cincinnati and working his way up to groomer at Belmont, Churchill Downs, and Pimlico.

Among all the empty booze bottles and one-night stands, Klein discovered an aesthetic affinity for horses, in particular one special--and well-known--thoroughbred, precipitating the author's final downfall and then leading toward his eventual salvation--and this memoir.

Klein leads the reader into a world rarely ventured into by the average horse track bettor: vivid descriptions of lame horses being cruelly euthanized and the casual doping of horses for monetary gain. At the beginning of chapter three, the author summarizes, from his perspective, the visible and invisible aspects of "racetrack society":

"There are people you see all the time: the barn help, the trainers, the exercise crew, the men and women who deliver hay and straw and feed. And there are those you see only rarely, if at all: the jockeys, the parimutuel clerks, the owners, the starting-gate crew. Two worlds: the training world and the racing world."

Ironically, from the reader's perspective, the visibility/invisibility paradigm is directly the opposite from the author's.

And Klein offers insights into worlds which are largely invisible to most of us: in addition to the gritty side of thoroughbred racing, he also reveals the limited options available to an impoverished young homosexual, also a poet and rebel, of the late seventies and early eighties.

First published in 1997, the memoir's main narrative covers the author's racetrack life, from its inauspicious beginning to its shocking 1984 denouement, with some interspersed flashbacks to his abusive and incestuous childhood and Manhattan life with Richard.

While revealing vivid and harsh details about his life, the author maintains a psychic distance from the reader through his dispassionate use of the past tense; moreover, he does not editorialize from the perspective of the forty-something memoirist.

He simply unfolds his story, leaving judgments, analyses, and evaluations up to his readers.

The distance works well; the author never whines or asks his audience to feel sorry for him. He simply presents "in-your-face" statements and facts, like them or hate them.

It doesn't matter what the reader thinks; in the end, Klein, with a metaphorical kick from his equine friend, triumphs.

There is beauty and poignancy in Klein's spare prose, yet glimmers of humor add some comic relief, for example, when he describes some of the other grooms and other track people and recounts some his late mother's family stories.

I recommend this book for both gays and straights--anyone who appreciates a well-written life-story, no matter how down and gritty.

I own the 1997 hardcover edition, and it is worth every one of the twenty-two dollars that I paid for it.

After I picked this book up and started reading it I couldnt put it down. The author is so vivid in her writing that it keeps you pinned to your seat. While reading the book its as though you can feel the fear that these children lived with on a day to day basis. This book sums up just how cruel some child abuse cases can really be.

This book was an eye opening experience for me. Many of us tend to run from our past and refusing to deal with it. When i read the book it made me realize that i am not the only one as a child that has suffered at the hands of a trusted adult and will continue to tell others i know about TWISTED ROOTS OF EVIL, A real page turner, when i read it i had to keep a box tissue near me. Until more people open there eyes and realize this is happening and speak up and stop the abuse then it will continue.

It was the most heart wrenching book I have read in a very long time. I work with abused children in one form or another and it just tears my heart out ...I am thrilled that the family has tried to find peace and is trying to move on.

Montell Williams interviewed the victims and I had to get the book. This book is well written and describes the horrors that these children went through and into their adult lives. The questions that were unanswered as children, the justice system, some answers, and the shock that another individual had to endure worse by the same hands of the perp. The author shows our human ability to grow past our upbringing to become "normal," successful individuals, yet also relates that remnants shall remain throughout our lives. This book leaves the reader pondering additional questions that cannot be answered.

If you are in an abusive relationship. . . this book will open your eyes! You can survive. The hurt can heal. . . and "you" must learn from the experience of others and break free.

Wonderfully done. Down to real life. It makes you think about the state of our country. We need to wake up! Thank you for the wake up call!

As I personally know the author, I was excited when I found out about the book. I thought it was going to be an 'easy' read....but in reality, it is far from it. It's a book that once you get your hands on it, you don't want to put it down. It's a book that when you finish it you will realize that you are a different person than you were when you started because you have a different outlook on life....how lucky we are to have what we do when there are so many people out there, like those in the book, who's lives are unbelievable when compared to ours. It truly does make you want to do something to help those less fortunate. Very Well Written, David!!

To see the faces of many I recognize, who continue to live without hope, is heartbreaking.

When I first opened the book, I leafed quickly through it to see if I could find a lovely woman, Mae, who I adored. She was shunned by her family, who lived up north, and gracefully walked through our city, day in and day out, with a smile on her face and in her heart. She never asked for anything and actually seemed embarrassed I would ask, but was always happy to engage in just about any conversation or topic.

Mae was found in a construction site in the downtown several months ago. Police still cannot find a motive for the brutal beating and senseless murder. Her purse was found on a bench near her body with a small amount of money still inside.

Many in my city, including me, struggle to find ways to help with the growing need of so many, especially the children. As hard as it was to read the intimate stories, I applaud Mr. Geliebter for his commitment to show us the story of actual lives ... human beings living in our city in inhumane conditions.

His work will serve to make my work that much more urgent.

Kimberly Mitchell
West Palm Beach City Commissioner

An inciteful book, providing a clear focus on the homeless of Palm Beach County, FL. More importantly, its about homeless anywhere in our country. It is honest, real and heart wrenching. With the microscope of a social scientist, David Geliebter's collection of stories makes you look at the homeless differently. A real bonus is his ability to tell the story through photography making this book artistic, beautiful as well as painfully informative. When you finish this book, you will see more than just a "person on the street"...you will see a person with a real human story. It is a book that will change your outlook on the homeless forever.

I LOVE THIS BOOK. It is so honest and true to who the individuals are as people. Its a great coffee table piece and conversation starter! Would recommend it to everyone!

Read this book in college, and the story and characters touched my heart. I still read it and it's still the same poignant, beautiful story I remember. I feel for Carl and his plight. he is a likable character. I felt sorry that his mother was a drunk and sexually promiscuous so Carl, age 16, had to escape by inventing a dream life and a fantasy sweetheart, and cheered when he moved up north with his farm-boy cousin and the cousin's folks, and he and his cousin became great pals and he even found a real girl to love -- the athletic blonde country beauty next door.
This should be a made for TV movie starring Cody kasch -- DanaZack on "Desperate Housewives" as Carl, David Gallagher -- Simon on "7th Heaven" -- as Robert, Carl's cousin, and Hilary Duff as Signa, carl's sweetheart

^^ I really would... I mean, the thoughts and feeling are so real and thought out to what a real sixteen-year-old boy in that situation of having and alcholic/protisute mother... I can really relate to how he's acting and feeling... I would tell anybody to add this book to their collection!!!! :)

I used to not like books this book changed my mind! a must read. Very touching and a great wake up call to life!

I read this book for an 8th Grade book report, and I have read it over and over again. Everytime I read it I get the same feelings I had the first time I read it. Carl Staggers feels what a real 16 year old boy would feel if he were in that same situation and it amazes me how well the auther expressed that.

Up Country is probably one of the most treasured books I own. I can relate to Carl's feelings and emotions, and every time I read it, the same situational segments of the story still make me laugh out loud. I would recommend Up Country to anyone, based on it's superb characterization and thought.

The author is a schoolmate of Bernard Cardinal Law, and so am I. Consequently, I found Jack Fritscher's novel to be as much memoir as fiction, as I was also a student at the Pontifical College Josephinum with both Law and Fritscher, and found the fictive parallels to my memories to be evocative of how we as young seminarians were taught and trained "to be pure and avoid scandal at all costs." That, I suggest, is the innocent essence of the secrecy the media now calls "cover-up." Don't all groups--from firemen and cops to Marines--close ranks around their own?

If one is at all analytical, one thinks that this "scandal of priest sexual abuse and priest molestation"--driven by media terribly hungry to fill 24/7 programming--is just another part of the fundamentalist religious war to destroy Western Civilization: i.e. Christianity, and Christianity's oldest bastion, Roman Catholicism.

At any rate, Fritscher's novel, despite its media-juicy title, is a gentle, yet eye-popping read about the rigors of seminary life as lived by the thousands of young men recruited by the Catholic Church in the 1950's. His insight lights up the seminary culture that produced the priests of a certain age who now stand--rightly and wrongly--accused.

The story is human, engaging, and quite literary, and never exploitative or graphically embarrassing even when confronting a variety of behavior including a Jesuit spiritual director distributing prescription drugs--without a prescription--to depressed seminarians at the fictive "Misericordia Seminary."

Actually, the novel is a credit to both the PCJ and to Monsignor Leonard J. Fick who was, apparently, so much a mentor to Fritscher that he dedicates the book to Msgr. Fick. (Anyone conjecturing about the seminary culture of Bernard Law's life might well enjoy this parallax story.)

What a good writer! What an entertaining book! One suspects Fritscher kept notes hidden under his bed, because he remembers minutiae I had long ago forgotten, but--reminded by this wonderful book--remember, with nostalgia, as true.

I think a "novel" like this--better than can nonfiction--brings out a truth of how we young seminarians were trained, particularly by priests who, as returning veterans of World War II, set very high standards for priestly masculinity in the adolescent world of young seminarians. Those standards' inherent flaw froze many an adolescent emotional life at 14-years-of-age, perhaps later causing some of them to seek others also at 14-years-old. Author Fritscher even writes, "What happens to a boy when he is 14, marks him for life." If this novel, which is never about the obvious, is at all autobiographical in its experiences, what a wonderful life for an author to have led!

In the "National Catholic Reporter," I found this novel, "What They Did to the Kid," which is what these days Hollywood might call a "pre-quel." Actually, a couple years ago I read a really DEFINITIVE post-seminary novel titled "Some Dance to Remember" and I thought of it because all the characters have the same names as the characters in "What They Did to the Kid."

Putting two and two together with the author's name, I did a search and was able to easily put together the continuing adventures of a seminarian--but not only what happened IN the seminary, but also what happened to him AFTER the seminary, in the real world, because of--BECAUSE OF--what happened to him in the seminary, and who he became in and after the seminary that itself as an institution put an INDELIBLE MARK on his soul. (The sequel was published first.)

All of us who were seminarians, have life after the seminary. "Some Dance to Remember" is the LIFE AFTER THE SEMINARY of Ryan O'Hara in "What They Did to the Kid."

Both books are perfectly well written, intellectually defensible, and worth reading for fun as well as insight, and they certainly throw light on the PSYCHOLOGY of how we boys got to the seminary, lived in the seminary corridors, and then went out into the big wide world where people always forever after summed us up as ex-seminarians--as if that explained us! Which maybe it does?

Two good HUMANIST novels--if you like to compare the INTERNAL QUEST of the first volume of "What They Did to the Kid" to the EXTERNAL WORLDLINESS of the second volume, "Some Dance to Remember." Priest-psychologists like the late Reverend Roger Radloff could have written expert JUNGIAN analyses of the psychological sweep of these 2 Catholic-driven novels.

The pre-quel/sequel Hollywood reference also works in that the style in both novels is so CINEMATIC you can "see" what's going on. I'm always interested in books--few and far between as they are--about the seminary life and post-seminary life of seminarians and priests, because it's always with me...like an indelible mark on my soul.

Inside the priest factory.
The media continues, even today, to be full of news of priest molestation of and priest abuse of children. I found this novel, "What They Did," to be amazing because it is totally insightful as to how and why Catholic seminarians had their psycho-sexual development stunted by the corporate institution of the the Church vis a vis seminary education.
The poor boy who narrates this story is a lost boy. Not one priest comes forward to help him. Not one priest comes forward to educate him or help him mature. This central character is typical of the priests who psycho-sexually remain young teens all their lives--with the attendant teenage emotional problems.
By the last page, I wanted to hold this suffering priest-boy in my arms. The last operatic scene says everything about the lonely isolation of the priesthood and celibacy. This book is entertaining, sometimes lyrical and mystical in the Catholic sense (which means Freud would find it interesting!), but definitely eye-opening regarding the abuse of young seminarians. Highly recommended if you want to see inside the priest factory!

I agree with some of these reviews. Well written coming-of-age story. A psychologist or psychiatrist could picnic on this powerful little book that tells the truth close to the way my brother the priest, and I (the former seminarian) both agree we remember it.

This novel of a repressed boy who wants to give his all to Christ is almost a case study, and all one needs to know, about why the Church needs to understand the recent charges about priest pederasty as a wake-up call for the Church's larger need to update itself on the whole, huge, complicated front of modern sexuality: priests'celibacy, women's issues of sex and abortion, couples' issues, homosexuals' souls, etc. etc.

The author manages to tell about Church abuse of seminarians (the future priests) which is a far more complicated psychological abuse than the sexual. What little sex there is, is dramatically (and historically) important, and is handled in an understated way that the most chaste reader could handle.

Bravo. Bravissimo!

Amazing. I thought I was reading a youthful journal written by my husband who has told me nearly everything about his seminary experience. In the light of the on-going church scandal regarding problems of sexuality, I found this novel to be really rather gentle and respectful--as well as insightful--of the human experience of boys' being locked away in a seminary.

Author Fritscher who obviously knows the territory about which he writes could have exploited the media controversy, but he seems to be a humane artist who chose not to do so. I appreciated being able to read about the secrecy of seminaries without being offended by overt sex or by the anti-Catholicism that fuels much of the media.

My husband seconded my opinion, and we both genuinely enjoyed the book just as a story. I learned things. My husband remembered things long forgotten. The book gave us some lively discussions.

This is the best book available about the effects of domestic abuse on children! It's a valuable tool for self-help or counselors. I am a Clinical Social Worker and Certified Domestic Violence Professional, and I recommend this book to most of my clients who are facing issues of divorce, custody, and coping with their children's emotional needs in the aftermath of an abusive relationship. I also use this author's other book "Why Does He Do That?" regularly in working with domestic violence victims and survivors.

This is an excellent book. It's informative, but very sensitive. I would highly recommend it to any moms out there that are being abused in any way, shape or form. Especially if you don't feel your kids are being affected by you being abused. Because guess what?! They are!

This book should be read by every family therapist, as it provides insights into how abusive partners manipulate not only their own families but also therapists and the legal system to maintain power and control over partners and children. This book is much more than another set of anecdotes.

If there are any women out there like me, that are, or have gone through some of the worst things in life with abuse. This book is for you. It is well worth every penny.

This book seems excellent for mothers who are either in or survivors of domestic violence ("DV"). However, if you are an adult who survived being raised in a home permeated by DV and you are looking for a book on healing the wounds, this is not the book for you. It gives great advice to assist mothers who have young children. I simply believe that I was not a part of the target audience for this particular book. I was looking for information for individuals who had witnessed repeated incidence of DV throughout their childhood and were attempting to heal the wounds. This is not the book for that purpose.

This is a beautiful book! The author takes you back in time to tell the stories of several generations of Scottish women. The book rings true through the lyrical dialect of the place and period, as these women tell their stories of hardship, abuse, sacrifice and generational trauma. This book will resonate for anyone with a family history of abuse and poverty, but it's not just about the pain. It's about the resilience of the human spirit and the strength and power of love that transcends suffering and leaves you feeling uplifted and renewed.

Jacqueline Wales has written a book worthy of a prize. She is, indeed, a master storyteller. I knew a little about her book before reading it (and loved the cover). At first I was concerned that the Scotish brogue would be difficult but I remained enthralled with the story of family hardships throughout. I am going to buy the CD when it becomes available so I can hear the brogue spoken. A well-written book and a fascinating work.

I just finished When the Crow Sings by Jacqueline Wales in two days, something I don't do with fiction. I couldn't get it out of my mind. It was not, however, until the last sentence that the tears came. No, gentle weeping is more accurate. Although it is very riling, it is also so riveting and cleverly written, that I was in awe at the end how it all came together. I also wanted more ( a sequel maybe?) Even though I have worked for years with women who have been abused and neglected by both parents and spouses, it was this novel that gave me a deep insight into the reality of the pain and consequences that others can inflict on us by their behaviors. So many feelings came up for me and I don't have an abusive background at all. I recommend it for everyone whether you identify or not. It will touch your heart. Claudia Scott, Jacksonville, Fl

This book is a page turner, a shocker, and a must read. An unadulterated account following three generations of Scottish women as they cycle through the destructive and painful annals of time, I felt myself tugged alongside of their struggles. A wonderfully cathartic novel for anyone seeking to face their own familial demons- this story is bound to stay with you for a long time. We should all be so fearless in the retelling of our own histories. Agnes is delivering a manuscript containing her niece's recount from the point of view of the women in her family, starting with her own mother's tragic love story that weaves itself through her own generation, and bleeding patterns into the next generation. The shock and pain of Agnes' realization of events that happen alongside her life can be clearly felt. Despite all the irony that the sense of life's inevitability themematically imparts, the story is surprisingly uplifting and hopeful. The women have strong spirits despite their flaws. The native dialogue will cause you to further immerse yourself in this book- a rare find that became an experience as well as an intriguing and emotional read. This one I can recommend with confidence

My favorite part of this book is how seamless and natural the language is. I got caught up in the story and lost in the wonderful dialect. The women in this book became very important to me and I lost a day of work reading because I could not put it down. It was a great read and left me feeling connected to the women in this family for days after.
Angela's Ashes: A Memoir