22 of 26 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Rescue and Redemption, May 26, 2000
This amazing story raised as many questions as it answers. The first half takes place in the several mental institutions around Chicago to which the seemingly average, but troubled, teenage Fleming is sent. It is never made clear just what his diagnosis was, only that the treatments were cruel and senseless. An appalling psychiatrist is profiled in Fleming's almost deadpan voice.
In the second half of the memoir, Fleming's brother, worldy New Yorker Uncle Ed (Edmund White), comes - dramatically, generously, and nearly unbelievably helpfully - to his nephew's rescue. He invites him to live in his NY apartment. Once there, White takes over the care and redemption of the boy. White is a saint, and it's obvious in this story. Fleming is taken to a dermatologist in order to finally get proper treatment for his severe acne, he is outfitted in great new clothes (the shopping trip is memorable),tutoring is arranged for, and eventually, prep school tuition paid.
White offers a benign and comforting acceptance that the boy has never known. (And educates Fleming, who is straight, regarding gayness and White's NYgay world of the 1970's - in what has to be one of the most interesting and sweet aspects of this memoir). Fleming quite naturally and sensibly falls under the spell of what has to be the world's best living relative. Uncle Ed is everything and more that readers of his many books can glean. He is sociable, witty, kind, generous to a fault. He works on books and writing assignments, talks on the incessantly ringing telephone, cooks for the boy, makes arrangements for his benefit, and then, while Fleming does his homework in the kitchen, White leaves to cruise gay bars, nightly.
White offers Fleming a tolerance and love that literally seems to save the child's life.
Fleming has a troubled and troublesome girlfriend, Laura. Their relationship is mapped for the reader, and Ed's acceptance and support of that love affair is described.
This is an incredible story. Things happen around this boy that are almost too heartbreaking and sad to believe. He describes his family and his several worlds with a clarity that is almost eerie. It seems reasonable to assume that he went through a hell much more difficult that the usual teenage stuff, and yet the reader never quite feels Fleming's sense of it. He quotes White liberally, lists the novels and music that his Uncle prescribed for him. You can smell the sulphur treatments that Fleming had to use, nightly - and hear the racket of Columbus Avenue outside of his little bedroom is his uncle's apartment.
This remarkable story is full of nearly photographic detail. The people are well drawn and memorable. Fleming lacks any self-pity In fact, I was terrorized by the life Fleming lived before being rescued by his uncle. Fleming's life in NY is pretty unusual, too, despite the outward conventionality of "coats and ties" from Barney's basement, and a prep school education.
This is a very interesting story of family, of Edmund White, and of his nephew, Keith Fleming. Definitely worth reading.
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12 of 13 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
REMARKABLE!, June 13, 2000
Within the first five pages of this book, I forgot my surroundings and became totally immersed in Keith Fleming's story. I read the book in a day and a half, and will re-read it again and again. Gripping and unpretentious, this memoir sizzles and sparks with anger and realism, as teenage angst comes alive in these pages. It is heart-breaking, but triumphant thanks to the author's timely intervention of his wise uncle, who happens to be gay, but is the only adult in the author's family who comes to his rescue at a critical time in his life. Fleming's dysfunctional family is 'a bit like you and me.' All American families can all relate to his tale, in varying degrees. A courageous, honest effort here. Bravo, Mr. Fleming!
READ THIS BOOK!
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12 of 14 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A Wonderful Ride, June 12, 2000
I still feel under the spell of Keith Fleming's wonderful memoir, The Boy with the Thorn in his Side. I read it over the weekend in 2 sittings. The opening pages grabbed me right away -- what an eccentric, fascinating family! Whether describing his first innocent sexual adventures, or his horrifying experience as the patient of a pyschiatrist/sadist, or his touching romance with an inner-city Latina, Fleming writes so well about what it feels like to be a teenager at the mercy of circumstances. And what circumstances! The book takes us through one extreme situation after another, always described with deep feeling and great sense of style. This book is so much more than a portrait of his uncle Edmund White. I recommend it to anyone interested in love, in families, in adolescence -- in life!
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