Eating the Shadow: A Memoir of Loss and Recovery [Paperback]

CL Watson (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 15, 2006

When CL Watson discovers that her brother, Carter, has topped 400 pounds and can no longer bathe himself, she decides to do something to save him. By turns hilarious, insightful, and moving, CL's true story about trying to save her brother from obesity is a journey into the very meaning of self-esteem. As children of alcoholics, both CL and her brother are at risk for addiction and depression. Even more frightening, CL's two boys are at risk, as well. "Addiction in the family is a cold shiver in the genes," says CL, "and the question sits in my consciousness like a cocked gun: Will I find a way to break the cycle?" Eating the Shadow tells the story of how we consume illusion in search of nourishment, and how we discover healing in truth.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Though often and understandably sad, Watson's chronicle of her brother Carter's struggle with obesity maintains a diligent pragmatism that keeps the book from slipping into unadulterated misery. The story follows Watson as she struggles both to impede her 400 pound brother's physical deterioration and to strengthen his fragile psyche. Watson spends a great deal of time recounting the suffering she and Carter faced at the hands of an alcoholic father and a recovering alcoholic mother, and the author spares no details from her own struggles with suicide and bulimia at a young age. While center stage is given to the details of Carter's diet lapses and breakthroughs, as well as his numerous hospital stays, Watson's larger subject is the legacy of addiction; throughout, she labors to get her own children to understand the damage they have inherited. Watson's prose doesn't always sparkle, suffering most when it slips into vague recovery-speak, but Carter's narrative is genuinely compelling, generating intense and complex sympathy without turning him into a saint. A brave, lucid and personal take on the widespread but largely anonymous problem of obesity, Watson's book is an unnerving look at family dysfunction, capped with a climax that's undeniably moving.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Review

A moving story that will help you understand recovery is a life-long, spiritual journey. --Jim and Sue Cusack, Founders, Veritas Villa, Inc., Inpatient chemical dependency treatment center

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 256 pages
• Publisher: Fenn Books and Media (September 15, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0977395103
• ISBN-13: 978-0977395101
• Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 6 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12.8 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,664,687 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars laughter and tears, May 29, 2006

By 

Randy Forsberg, Ph.D. (Manhattan NY) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Eating the Shadow: A Memoir of Loss and Recovery (Paperback)

The amazing thing about this memoir is that it makes you laugh as often as it makes you tear up. Authentic, caring, illuminating, it takes on the problem of the addictive personality and the family frameworks that perpetuate or help end this problem.

This is a delightful, heartwarming book, which reflects and gives courage and energy to all who are struggling with life's common problems.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Eating the Shadow, May 23, 2006

By 

LH Watson (Anthem, AZ, United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Eating the Shadow: A Memoir of Loss and Recovery (Paperback)

What a wonderful rendition of a tragic life experience. CL's amazing writing style catches you at the very first, pulling you through her desparate attempts to save her brother. To read through the whole ordeal from her perspective was at once humourous and heart-wrenching. I believe every person who has loved someone who has lost themselves to addiction, any kind of addiction, needs to read this account if only to understand their own futile attempts to save anyone except themselves. Life can be a harsh teacher, but the gifts we receive if we always choose love are immeasurable. I am truly grateful for CL's story and hope it helps millions of people.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Profoundly Moving and Engaging, March 24, 2006

By 

Martin Rowe "Martin Rowe, Lantern Books" (New York, NY) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Eating the Shadow: A Memoir of Loss and Recovery (Paperback)

The epidemic of obesity in the developed world threatens to lower life expectancy and add yet more burdens to already strained health care systems around the world. Like many others who don't suffer from weight problems or food issues, I find it hard not to think that people who eat too much and exercise have only themselves to blame, even though it's clear that obesity is, like alcoholism, an addiction, requiring a holistic, multilayered therapeutic response rather than moralizing or finger-wagging.

The pressures and difficulties of food addiction were brought home to me by Eating the Shadow. The book tells the story of author CL Watson's brother, Carter, who turned from being a chubby kid into being a 400-pound invalid, and how his mother, siblings (raised with an alcoholic father), and friends tried to help this man who found it hard to accept his condition or the advice of others.

Ultimately, tragically, they fail, and Carter dies from complications stemming from obesity. In the meantime, however, we get startling, funny, moving and heartfelt insights into a family struggling with the patterns of addiction and denial, and of the power of food and sugar to smother every raw and necessarily painful emotion. Meanwhile, the extended family is forced to deal with the schizophrenia of one of Carter's niece's, another nephew's night terrors, and financial difficulties that bring home the sheer cost (both emotional and financial) that weigh upon a family when there is dysfunction and illness at its heart.

The moral of Eating the Shadow is that it is possible to intervene in the addictive process (whatever that addiction might be) and stop your loved one from dying, but that it has to be done early, and massively, and with total family support. It remains true of this, as everything else, that while the addict must first recognize that they have a problem, their road to recovery cannot be walked in isolation and that, ultimately, it is about us and our relationships with each other rather than our relationship with food.