Approaching Neverland: A Memoir Of Epic Tragedy & Happily Ever After [Hardcover]

Peggy Kennedy (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 27, 2009

For as long as she could remember, Peggy Kennedy bore witness to her mother?s mental illness. While growing up in the 1960s, Peggy?s mother, Barbara, often liked to play games of make-believe and tell the children they were all going to Neverland?just like Peter Pan. But while the children knew it was all pretend, Barbara believed it to be all too true.Approaching Neverland recounts Peggy and her family?s attempts to deal with their mother?s mental illness during a time when it was little understood and even feared. With brutal honesty and surprising humor, Peggy shares the turbulence of growing up under the shadow of Barbara?s illness, of being shuffled from one family member to the next, and of visiting her mother in the mental institution. As the years pass, the shadows of Barbara?s challenges become a loving legacy in Peggy?s quest to achieve happiness and fulfillment in her life.A vivid, haunting portrayal of one woman?s struggle to understand how the past fits in with her future, Approaching Neverland is as inspiring as it is beautifully written and will stay with you long after the last page is turned.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Peggy Kennedy has been producing events in the San Francisco Bay Area for over twenty years, ranging from the Chinese New Year Parade to the Bay Bridge Celebration. She lives with her family in Northern California.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 272 pages
• Publisher: iUniverse (March 27, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1440126127
• ISBN-13: 978-1440126123
• Product Dimensions: 8.6 x 5.6 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (12 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,836,588 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Peggy Kennedy grew up in the San Francisco Bay Area and sold real estate for eight years before splitting from her husband and moving to San Francisco to start an events company which developed sponsorship for the Bay Bridge 50th Birthday, Bay Bridge Permanent Lighting Campaign, In Concert Against AIDS, and San Francisco's annual Chinese New Year celebration. Compelled to write her family's unique and moving story, Kennedy began work on her memoir, Approaching Neverland, in 2004. The book is a Silver recipient of the Mom's Choice Awards, won 1st place for non-fiction at the San Francisco Writer's Conference and was named a Finalist in the Next Generation Indie Awards. Peggy is beginning her next book, a story about her sister Joan's life and murder.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars What a time it was., April 13, 2009

By 

Lynn Lundstrom (Bay Area, CA USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Approaching Neverland: A Memoir Of Epic Tragedy & Happily Ever After (Hardcover)

Reading this book swept me back to coming of age in the '60s. I was riveted to the memories from a time when no one mentioned divorce, let alone parental mental illness or infidelity; no one mentioned family members facing confusion in their gender identification; and no one knew what new issues challenged, even threatened, our development to adulthood. This powerful memoir is told with humor, compassion and wisdom and reveals an undercurrent of abiding sadness. Was the modern dysfunctional family invented then? If only every such family had the same rich resources as the Kennedys: unconditional love and support between numerous siblings; persistent creativity; family loyalty; and, for some, resilience. There will always be families facing mental illness, confused children, and young adults in crisis: identities evolving and sorting out years after. Approaching Neverland is an affirming, human tale of one woman from such a family.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A story that will bring you back to your childhood memories., August 24, 2009

By 

Patricia (Oregon) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Approaching Neverland: A Memoir Of Epic Tragedy & Happily Ever After (Hardcover)

The story is not just about a family dealing with mental illness but a story about love within a family. It brought me back to those same times when I thought that everyone else's world around me was perfect except for my world. As we grow we realize that every family has it's problems.The book felt truthful and real. I could picture the moments in my mind and took it with me all thru the day.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Memoir of Epic Proportions, June 18, 2009

By 

Diana Black (Atlanta, Georgia) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Approaching Neverland: A Memoir Of Epic Tragedy & Happily Ever After (Hardcover)

Unlike J.M. Barrie's fictional character Peter Pan who enjoyed never-ending childhood, Peggy Kennedy, as she eloquently recounts in her candid memoir, "Approaching Neverland," scarcely had time to be a kid.

September 1960: Five-year-old Peggy perches on a chrome chair, arms circling her cereal bowl. Fraught with first-day-of-school jitters, her feet nervously dangle above a zigzag sea of maroon, green and beige linoleum.

"She's tired this morning," her father says noticing Peggy looking for her mother. "She needs her rest."

Heart heavy and hair tangled, Peggy stares at her Cheerios.

Arriving at school under the wings of four siblings, she lingers in the hall while her brother rakes a comb across her ponytail. In class, on best behavior, hands folded in her lap, she's singled-out and escorted from the room. Her disheveled hair, it appears, betrays her family. It calls attention to the fact everything in the Kennedy home may not be as it seems. Peggy, however, knows the drill. She chokes back tears and the truth.

Home again, anxious to share her day, Peggy and her sisters and brothers are met with The Lone Ranger theme blaring, rooms topsy-turvy and their mother, Barbara, trotting around a "collection of objects, her head thrown back like an Indian circling a captured village."

Thus the reader begins a powerful, chaotic journey with Peggy and her family through the veiled ravages of mental illness. Children quietly shuffled back and forth to family members. Hushed hospitalizations. Undisclosed attempts by Barbara to whisk them all off to "Neverland." Once with near fatal consequences.

Such was the fate of a mental illness diagnosis 50 years ago. So little was understood by medical professionals, fearful patients and families knew only to secretly give it their best shot.

Best, however, does not trump loss. Peggy's brave, beautiful and often humorous account of a family's efforts to put the pieces back together, again and again, while continuing to endure more tragedy than anyone should ever have to, is a remarkable legacy to the people in her life and their capacity for love. Because, in spite of it all, time after time, even when love was not enough to change the circumstances, it triumphed.

Peter Pan's youth was everlasting. Peggy, through a willingness to examine and move beyond misplaced childhood to life well-lived, also savors forever. Her closing sentiment in "Approaching Neverland": "...sometimes, good things can last and last. And last."
WOOF: Women Only Over Fifty