Customer Reviews

Daughter of the Queen of Sheba: A Memoir

5 star:		(13)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(5)
2 star:		(5)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

I am saddened to find so many unfavorable reviews of this memoir. Reading it, I was reminded of "Angela's Ashes," "A Beautiful Mind" and "Growing Up." I found Lyden's prose both poetic and evocative. I thought she portrayed her own family and herself with remarkable journalistic perspective, but also with compassion. I am amazed at the extent of Lyden's success in her attempt to describe her mother's mania, as well as the author's candor about her own life. There's no self-indulgence in these pages, only a long and difficult distance bravely traveled and recounted for us, so we can see the terrain through her eyes. To the critical reviewers, I say, "Let us read your life," and to Ms. Lyden an unequivocal, "Bravo."

I have lived this book. My mother is bipolar and living with her was an unbelievably difficult and sad experience. Jacki Lyden so beautifully chronicles the ups and downs of living with a mother who one day seems normal, and then can change to someone so unpredictable that as a child you lose all sense of yourself. Recovering from a childhood with a bipolar mother is not to be taken lightly, and Jacki Lyden gave me the inspiration to move forward and leave the demons of my past behind. An excellent book on living with someone you live who is mentally ill.

To travel this memoir with the author, the reader gains some small comprehension of life with a bi-polar personality and how the illness dominates a family, shrinking everyone else into insignificance. Bi-polar disorder or manic depression is a phenomenon recently addressed by a number of women in their memoirs, or any of a myriad of dysfunctional behaviors that tear at the fabric of family structure.

In the severest cases a role reversal takes place early in the daughter's life, predictably long before the child has even defined herself. Literally, the child is forced by circumstance to relinquish her childhood; by its very nature, this confusion enables the mother to continue the destructive behavior at the expense of the entire family unit. The price is enormous, as each sibling spends years as an adult trying to recover the child within, forced to be nurturer rather than nurtured. This usurpation of childhood is probably more common than it would appear to an observer because family members cover for eachother, creating a united front.

While Lyden paints a vivid picture of the desolation of mental illness, by far the more heartbreaking reality is the years of confusion ahead for the daughter, whose own behavior may have become more risky and outrageous in an effort to compensate. The mother's legacy is a few moments of pure joy in a lifetime of painful distortion.

I found the book truthful and brutally honest, until the last chapter. By then I knew everything I ever wanted to know about Lyden's mother. The final chapter, "The Queen of Sheba", seemed to wrap the package in a bow, as if to say, "See how clever she is, even in her delusions?" At that point I was exhausted by Lyden's mother and her terminal uniqueness. The debris left in the wake of her chaos leaves nothing to the imagination. The memoir spoke entirely to me of a woman's struggle to survive her childhood, warts and all, to purchase a sense of self from the remains.

This is the story of a long self-discovery journey. Ms. Lyden writes a mostly wonderful memoir of her life. Although the main focus is apparently her mother, the book has a few sub-themes and characters to make it flow in a wonderful way. It was written so well, that I took two months to read it in order to make it last as long as possible. I loved all the details of her early childhood, and particularly got fond of Jackie's grandmother. I've seen reviews saying that Ms. Lyden writting was self absorbed and that she was playing a martyr. I dissagre, I think she was honest, even to the point of confessing how a part of her wanted her mother locked up in county's mental institution. One of my fears on reading this book was to find it too depressing, and true, it had some sad moments, but I also found myself laughing pretty hard. The whole Christmas episode where her mother pretends to be dead, was hilarious. One of those family situations that infuriates you when it happens and years laters you talk about it, and find the humor in it. I can see why Ms. Lyden wrote about her Middle-East experience as a relation to Sheba's Queendom, but the whole situation on her "Rodeo" job was a little distracting. It was an interesting part of her life that should be in another of her future books. Everything else in the book is top notch and I recomend reading it.

I bought this book after watching Ms. Lyden's appearance on Larry King Live, in which she spoke engagingly and eloquently about her childhood, her mother's illness, and the effects it had on the family. Sadly, she speaks more effectively than she writes.

Big words taste and feel good in our mouths, and it's fun to string a bunch together (this I know from personal experience), but after reading that style through a couple of chapters it got tiresome. Ms. Lyden seemed more interested in demonstrating her command of the English language than in telling her story.

I was also disappointed by too-frequent and too-lengthy sidetracks into other aspects of the family's life (for instance, the whole trip to Mexico story could have been told in a couple of pages). I had the impression Ms. Lyden was trying to flesh out the book.

For those interested in the subject matter, this is worth a try if you can find it second-hand or in the library, but not worth full price.

I do recommend watching Ms. Lyden if you ever get a chance to see her being interviewed - she is an excellent communicator...just not on paper.

This was a beautifully written and obviously hearfelt book. The way Lydon views and describes the world is rich and fascinating. Makes me wish I could view my own life through her eyes to see it better. Also, her apparent love for all parts of who her mother is, even the 'less sane' aspects of her personality, really shines through.

Jacki Lyden's poignant memoir describes the turmoil in her life as the daughter of a bipolar mother. Some of the things that her mother does are quite humorous; but apathy makes you mortified - when you think of your own mother and how you would be torn between loving her and deserting her. I just finished this book and it was one of the best dealing with mental orders that I have ever experienced.

I was attracted to this book after seeing the author on Oprah Winfrey. My reason for this attraction was deeply personal. I, too, have dealt with the challenges of living with a bipolar disorder. It is no walk in the park!

This is a beautiful and sensitively written story about a daughter's journey with her mother who suffers from manic depression. Despite the horrifying aspects of the illness with its inherent and dramatic unpredictability, the author manages to embrace her mother with love and look at the humorous side of a sad situation.

Yes, it is dark. That goes with the territory. Yet it will open doors of understanding to those who have no comprehension of what is a prevalent though highly treatable form of mental illness. It will especially mean a lot to people who have borne the trauma of the disease within themselves or among those they love.

Davis Aujourd'hui, author of "The Misadventures of Sister Mary Olga Fortitude"

National Public Radio announcer, Jackie Lydon, has written a memoir of life with her colorful family and manic depressive mother.

While in the throes of mania, Delores, Jackie's mother, is brilliant, delusional, dangerous and colorful. Jackie is torn between her mother as the manic 'Queen of Sheba' vs. the regular Delores. The demands places on Jackie and her family by her mother's illness, and the fine line between respect and protection of self and others is explored. Lithium finally brings the manic depression in check but there is also a loss of that part of Delores that is especially creative and unpredictable.

Lydon captures the manic frenzy and metaphorical race of inner life in a marvelously lyrical way. She charts the inner mind much as she'd learn the workings of a new culture while doing a story for NPR. This is a very fine book. I recommend it for anyone with an interest in manic depression or living what it's like to live with a family member who is mentally ill.

I recommend this book to everyone, and everyone loves it! I actually stopped reading it for a couple of weeks when I had two pages to finish because I didn't want it to end. Even if you aren't interested in the story (which I can't imagine), her prose alone is worth the price of the book. I hope she writes another book SOON!