Customer Reviews

The Boy with the Thorn in His Side: A Memoir

5 star:		(9)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

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.

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!

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!

I found myself admiring the narrative structures Mr Fleming has designed for his memoir, which reads more like a good novel. He never tells us more than we want to know, yet what he does tell us always sheds light on a most unusual adolescence and family. There's a wonderful grasp of character here, including the author's own younger self. His uncle Edmund White's A Boy's Own Story has long been one of the novels I most admire, and I think what his nephew Keith Fleming has accomplished here is a new Boy's Own Story, the next generation of it. The depiction of the young Edmund White, not yet famous, is priceless, yet I think the book would stand up just as well were the Uncle Ed of the book not a famous name. The relationship between uncle and nephew is one of the most complex and fascinating connections I can remember reading. The book leaves you wanting to know what transpired next between these two.

This is one of the many memoirs / autobiographies, relating to the ubiquitous stories of 'troubled youth'. Flemmings emotional maturity and consistently strong writing has aloud him to tell the story of a turbulent adolescence akin to "Girl Interrupted", "Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius", etc. I was not drawn to this novel for Ed White, but rather found it in the bookstore Biography section by chance. I have seen criticisms of Flemming's dupe on the public as advertising this to be a memoir of Ed White, but it this really the case? At face value, this is a remarkable memoir of a troubled journey through adolescence devoid of all "poor me" sentiments that the other above-mentioned memoirs seem to convey. I highly recommend this book to anyone and everyone - it is a gem!

A year ago I heard Edmund White say in an interview that his nephew was writing a biography of him. When I put this book on hold at the library, sight unseen, I therefore expected a traditional biography, not the memoir that it is. One could almost forget Keith Fleming's uncle is Edmund White, the renowned author and icon, and see him as merely any anonymous, loving uncle. Fleming's writing is down-to-earth, almost eerily unsentimental, and explanatory without being didactic. He doesn't omit the parts that make him look bad (or the details that cast White in a somewhat negative light). He even sounds poetic in a few spots (perhaps his uncle's influence?).

I was moved by the portrayal of Uncle Ed's generosity, his humanness, and his abundant caring for a nephew who seemed by turns self-destructive, ungrateful, and more trouble and expense than he was worth. At the end Fleming writes: "Sometimes the hardest thing for a teenage boy to write is the simple truth. And if that truth involves just how green and scared you were when you came to Uncle Ed, how you fell under his spell and how you now owed everything to him..." Time and maturity have obviously given Fleming the appreciation he lacked as a teenager. Although most of us didn't endure the harrowing ordeal Fleming did while growing up, he expresses that adolescent angst vividly enough for all to relate to it.

What emerges is a story of a family where an uncle's love was able to overcome the neglect and misguided attempts at childrearing of Fleming's parents. This book--a tribute to Uncle Ed--shows that White's perseverance paid off. A poignant memoir.

I guess it's a fact of life that all distinctive books tend to elicit very polarized responses. But I was surprised by the venom of one reviewer. I think the first Amazon reviewer (top 50, not top 500) got it right: this memoir contains several rich and deeply felt stories. Yes, I picked up the book thinking it would be completely centered around the kid with the gay uncle, but what I found was a very pleasant surprise. Every year it seems some new book is hyped as the next Catcher, but this one really does capture that same spirit. A sensitive teen suffering the adult world's cruelties and hypocracies, though there's a hero in the family. I can only tell you that you shouldn't listen to anyone telling you this book is an unremarkable story. Read it yourself. This kid went to hell and back: a psychiatrist out of a nightmare, a mom who goes AWOL and gay, a crazy school where the teachers pay no attention to the students. My one caveat, actually, is that the book should have been a third longer. First rate stuff.

Keith Fleming may have had a leg up on the rest of us eager to pen and share our memoirs, via his association with a famed writer. But, as they say, whatever gets you in the door. Though the initital attraction to the book was my interest in gaining a privileged view of how a writer thrives in a world where bills must be paid and real life is beyond one's creative control, I soon found myself lost in the story of Keith Fleming. His struggle to understand himself and to be understood while moving inevitably toward adulthood reminds of my own. In the end, this book became a sort of secret sharer for me, a place to reflect on my own life journey and those various figures in my life who have helped shape my sense of self. Too bad I never had anyone as cool as Uncle Eddie.

Keith Fleming is a pretty good storyteller. He really makes you picture the times, places and characters in his life. Especially strong is the evil Doctor at the hospital and his wonderful uncle in New York City. (Edmund White) These characters and moments really stand out.

However most of this book just rambles about and then ends with no purpose whatsoever. At the end I wondered "why did he write it" and "why did I read it?". I would not recommend this book because it just meanders and ends with no explanation. I need more of a story arc even from a biography.

The other thing that puzzled me was why he would paint such a wonderful loving tribute to his uncle and then ruin it by mentioning an offhand sexual advance by his uncle. It seemed out of place never explored his feelings behind it or why it was even mentioned. It was kind of unsavory without a reason for it.

Keith needed a good editor on this book and some guidance.

"Just who is Keith Fleming and why is he tryng to slay me" might be a good subtitle for this short memoir. Frankly I bought the book because of my great admiration for Edmund White (the Uncle Ed of Keith's minor autobiography) and in the end all reasons for liking the book reflect back to that initial response. Yes, this is the life of an unfortunate, acneiform teenage product of yet another dysfunctional family unit whose saving grace is his finding solace with his brilliant writer uncle in New York. Keith Fleming writes well, has some pages when his prose actually begins to sing, but aside from his "growing up" experience with Edmund White, his story - full of despair and cruel circumstances -hardly registers as a precis for a book. But all criticism aside, Fleming does give us more insights into the person of Edmund White and it is refreshing to read passages that demonstrate White's warmth and humanity and caring that often his books fail to suggest. Far from being just a flamboyant social surface person, White, as drawn by his nephew, has more than a modicum of compassion for family, for adolescence, for the sticks and stones that make us falter as we mature. So, I think this young writer bears watching. Maybe next time his misery will not be too much with us.......