Amen, Amen, Amen: Memoir of a Girl Who Couldn't Stop Praying (Among Other Things) [Hardcover]

Abby Sher (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 20, 2009

Until the age of ten, Abby Sher was a happy child in a fun-loving, musical family. But when her father and favorite aunt pass away, Abby fills the void of her loss with rituals: kissing her father's picture over and over each night, washing her hands, counting her steps, and collecting sharp objects that she thinks could harm innocent pedestrians. Then she begins to pray. At first she repeats the few phrases she remem-bers from synagogue, but by the time she is in high school, Abby is spending hours locked in her closet, urgently reciting a series of incantations and pleas. If she doesn't, she is sure someone else will die, too. The patterns from which she cannot deviate become her shelter and her obsession.

In college Abby is diagnosed with obsessive-compulsive disorder, and while she accepts this as an explanation for the counting and kissing and collecting, she resists labeling her fiercest obsession, certain that her prayers and her relationship with G-d are not an illness but the cure. She also discovers a new passion: performing comedy. She is never happier than when she dons a wig and makes people laugh. Offstage, however, she remains unable to confront the fears that drive her. She descends into darker compulsions, starving and cutting herself, measuring every calorie and incision. It is only when her earliest, deepest fear is realized that Abby is forced to examine and redefine the terms of her faith and her future.

Amen, Amen, Amen is an elegy honoring a mother, father, and beloved aunt who filled a child with music and their own blend of neuroticism. It is an adventure, full of fast cars, unsolved crimes, and close calls. It is part detective story, part love story, about Abby's hunt for answers and someone to guide her to them. It is a young woman's radiant and heartbreaking account of struggling to recognize the bounds and boundlessness of obsession and devotion.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"Abby Sher has written a beautiful book. It's deeply personal and original, but deals with the big issues we all struggle with -- faith, family, food, and of course, Neil Diamond." -- A. J. JACOBS, author of The Guinea Pig Diaries and The Year of Living Biblically

"Amen, Amen, Amen is Abby Sher's brave, haunting, amazing memoir of her lifelong struggle with OCD. But it's more than this -- it's an inspiring tale of a woman overcoming adversity, learning to trust herself, allowing herself to fall in love, letting go of her parents' complex legacy. For memoir lovers, it is a prayer answered. Told in the author's fresh, wise, witty voice, the book, at times, is impossible to put down. This incredible book makes for obsessive, compulsive reading." -- JENNIFER FINNEY BOYLAN, author of She's Not There and I'm Looking Through You

"Even if you've never had one obsessive thought in your life, which I highly doubt, you will find yourself in Amen, Amen, Amen. Fine, maybe you don't count your kisses or speak Hebrew or create elaborate anorexic exercise mantras, but I'm fairly certain you know what it's like to feel out of control, small, and unseen. Abby Sher's humanity, humility, and hilarity will make you feel less alone and blessed to be alive in this fragile world." -- KIMBERLEE AUERBACH, author of The Devil, The Lovers, & Me: My Life in Tarot

"Amen, Amen, Amen offers a poignant, pitch-perfect look at love, loss, danger, and redemption through the eyes of a young woman struggling with OCD. Abby Sher illuminates her fascinating story with insight, wit, and compassion, making for a compelling and powerful read." -- RABBI DANYA RUTTENBERG, author of Surprised by God: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Religion

"Amen, Amen, Amen is a memoir of a girl's broken heart -- and all the absurd, funny, and oh-so-sacred pains Abby Sher endures to pick up the pieces and walk them silently home. Tender and lovely." -- BARBARA ROBINETTE MOSS, author of Change Me into Zeus's Daughter

About the Author

Abby Sher is a writer and performer whose work has appeared in Modern Love: 50 True and Extraordinary Tales of Desire, Deceit, and Devotion and Behind the Bedroom Door: Getting it, Giving it, Loving it, Missing it as well as in The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, Self, Jane, Elle, HeeB and Redbook. She is also the author of the young adult novel Kissing Snowflakes. Abby has written and performed for the Second City in Chicago and the Upright Citizen’s Brigade and Magnet Theater in New York. She lives in Brooklyn with her husband and daughter.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 320 pages
• Publisher: Scribner (October 20, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1416589457
• ISBN-13: 978-1416589457
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (43 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #920,293 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Abby Sher is a writer and performer whose work has appeared in Modern Love: 50 True and Extraordinary Tales of Desire, Deceit, and Devotion and Behind the Bedroom Door: Getting it, Giving it, Loving it, Missing it as well as in The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, Self, Jane, Elle, HeeB and Redbook. She is also the author of the young adult novel Kissing Snowflakes. Abby has written and performed for the Second City in Chicago and the Upright Citizen's Brigade and Magnet Theater in New York. She lives in Brooklyn with her husband and daughter.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Wonderful book, October 28, 2009

By 

book lover - See all my reviews

This review is from: Amen, Amen, Amen: Memoir of a Girl Who Couldn't Stop Praying (Among Other Things) (Hardcover)

Amen, Amen Amen is a brilliant, creative, genuine, and heart-wrenching account of Abby Sher's experience with life, love, and loss. Rarely do we as readers see so clearly how a child's mind works to make sense of the complex world around her. It is a must read for anyone who has struggled to understand the ways of the world - meaning it is a must read for just about everyone.

10 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Excellent Prose; Long-Winded & Self-Indulgent, January 2, 2010

By 

Pamela V ""MS V"" (Mississippi Gulf Coast) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: Amen, Amen, Amen: Memoir of a Girl Who Couldn't Stop Praying (Among Other Things) (Hardcover)

(What's this?)

Amen, Amen, Amen, by Abby Sher is a memoir of a life with Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, and with anorexia-like eating disorders.

Raised in upstate New York by a passionate attorney father and stoic, selfless mother, their Jewish household was a blend of two adopted children and one biological child: Abby. The author had an exceptionally close relationship with both parents, and tragically lost her father to kidney cancer when she was just 12 years old. This loss, which happened just months after the death of a young, favorite aunt, likely sowed the seeds for what became the authors lifelong issues with OCD.

The first half of the book is largely devoted to helping the reader understand the authors rituals and prayers; we learn that Ms. Sher felt responsible for death and illness that struck not only her own family and friends, but for the whole world. By the time the author reaches college, she's spending hours a day praying and kissing things, and squirreling away things she finds on the street that she feels might hurt someone or cause them death, like paperclips and bits of glass.

The book is long and we follow the author from college and through her twenties, while she devotes her life to writing and acting in comedy sketches; to her female roommate Ruthie and to her love interests. Before you know it, the author has developed a full blown eating disorder, and is adept at cutting herself and banging her head.

There are parts in this book that made me wish I could shake the author and make her straighten up her life. I understand that OCD is a mental disorder, but I had a hard time identifying with the progression to cutting and the anorexia. I couldn't identify with her because she seemed disloyal to friends, childlike and immature. She worshiped her parents and made them into saints, but didn't seem to care about other people, or even herself. I'm pretty sure she suffered with a personality disorder, too.

I do have to give her props for being an excellent writer. The book was superbly written; I just don't feel much after reading it.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Beautiful, December 14, 2009

By 

Pop Culture Mulcher (Detroit, Michigan) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: Amen, Amen, Amen: Memoir of a Girl Who Couldn't Stop Praying (Among Other Things) (Hardcover)

(What's this?)

Sher's frank portrait of growing up with obsessive compulsive disorder is well-written and moving. OCD is often seen as a humorous disorder that causes people to be neat freaks or do quirky things like turn the lights on and off fifteen times so the oceans don't dry up. Amen, Amen, Amen rips the comedic veil off OCD and exposes it for what it is: a disorder that can ravage a person's life. It begins slowly, with repeating prayers a certain number of times daily, and ultimately leads to an eating disorder as well as other major life problems.

Amen, Amen, Amen is beautiful and heatbreaking, a painful snapshot of what it's like to experience loss and to be mentally ill, but it never bogs down into hopelessness.