Half The House: A Memoir [Paperback]

Richard Hoffman (Author)

Book Description

Series: Harvest Book | Publication Date: October 24, 1996

The headlines that followed the hardcover publication of this unflinching memoir testify to its power: "Poet's memoirs lead to arrest of alleged child molester," "Author's writing on abuse brings new victims forward." In a new afterword, Richard Hoffman writes about the events his book set in motion, the cries for help he received from men across the country, and the talk he had with an eleven-year-old boy who thanked him "for making it stop." Against the backdrop of postwar, blue-collar America, Half the House depicts a family's struggles to care for two terminally ill children, recounts the sexual abuse to which the author, at age ten, was subjected by his coach, and explores the ways in which grief and rage estrange those who need each other most. A testament to the healing power of truth telling, this "spare, poignang" memoir (Time) "offers heartening evidence, to borrow William Faulkner's phrase, of the human capacity to endure and prevail" (Washington Post).

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Poet Hoffman's memoir of a childhood in which he was sexually assaulted by his sports coach led to the arrest and recent conviction of the man responsible.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal

Hoffman's work has appeared in literary journals such as the Hudson Review, Kansas Quarterly, and Shenandoah; he currently works at a health clinic. His childhood, which he recounts in this memoir, was shattered by the deaths of two young brothers with muscular distrophy, abuse from his father, and sexual molestation by a coach. For a period, Hoffman himself turned to alcohol and drugs. His memoir is ultimately a story of love, reconciliation, and triumph over adversity. Hoffman's spare style makes his story all the more affecting, as he skillfully interweaves the beautiful and ugly details of growing up in a working-class family in Allentown, Pennsylvania. Returning home to confront his father, Hoffman writes, "I was shrinking....I felt a split-second shock that my feet reached the floor." In the end, he does become a man, reconciles with his father, and brings his own children to visit. His memoir will be of interest to public libraries as well as to some academic and special ones.?Nancy Shires, East Carolina Univ., Greenville, N.C.
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 208 pages
• Publisher: Mariner Books (October 24, 1996)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0156004674
• ISBN-13: 978-0156004671
• Product Dimensions: 7.8 x 5.3 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8.8 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (9 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,642,349 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

16 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Gives hope where we usually think there is none, August 19, 1997

By 

[e-mail] (Cambridge, MA , USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Half The House: A Memoir (Paperback)

In Half the House Mr. Hoffman, like any good writer, is intimately concerned with truth, the minute, daily, specific reality of his experience in the rustbelt of Allentown, PA, in the nineteen fifties in working class America. His style is careful, descriptive, direct, and poetic -- but not personal. Half the House is written, as Mr. Hoffman is also a well-published poet, with detachment, technique, and maturity. Of the several memoirs I have read this year, only Half the House resolves its issues, its grimness, its pain in a health-promoting, realistic, peace-giving redemption. That final, moving scene between defensive father and guilty son, wherein each gives a little, then alot, then communicate genuinely and respectfully dissolving forty years of impediment to love, is the kind of real life forgiveness all of us only dare dream of. Half the House does it. As Nabokov once said it takes a deep spiritual sense to create a masterpiece. Half the House has the depth. Ron Morin

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Very private writing, July 2, 1997

By A Customer

This review is from: Half the House: A Memoir (Hardcover)

I read "Half the House" because I'm a sucker for anything billed as a memoir of abuse and healing. I had it on my "to read" pile for a year befor an update on ABC's "20/20" compelled me to get it out. (The update was useful -- without it "Half the House" remains half a book -- that's not a slam.)Mr. Hoffman is just a bit younger than I and from the same region and religious background as I. His recollections of his early schooling, particularly the black-and-white on newsprint art books we had, were certainly familiar ground for me. I think this would be a good reading experience for someone contemplating or enduring the same kind of healing journey

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Honest and hopeful, August 16, 2002

By 

K. C. Skrobela "miranda ceo" (Brooklyn, NY United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Half the House: A Memoir (Hardcover)

Without flinching from the truth, this book shows that it IS possible to break the circle of abuse: to understand, to love, to forgive, to recover, and to go on loving and nurturing those who are dear. The story of Hoffman's growing up with two terminally ill brothers, a father sometimes unable to control his rage, a mother who copes by shutting out memories, and a sexually abusive coach, is painful but ultimately hopeful.