Customer Reviews

The Laid Daughter: A True Story

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

 

 

I was sort of afraid to read this book - was afraid the incest story would be too hard to look at head on. Before I started, I decided I would stop if I wanted to. I never stopped. Bonner's way with words always made me feel safe. I knew as I read that things would work out - that I would be left with hope instead of despair.

"Things working out" doesn't mean that the pain did not happen, but that Bonner found a way through it to a peaceful life. I am heartened by this book.

I have seen this title often but there are so many books about childhood incest, that I made the mistake of failing to look closer. The writing style of Helen Bonner is insightful, yet slightly detached as she tells of recovered memories surfacing as she taught literature as a college professor. Bonner veils her painful recollections within the stories of literature and her world as a professor, becoming angered at the mores of the past and present social structure that can allow a woman's worth to go unnoticed...then as the story unfolds like a mystery, Bonner addresses the real dragons in her life, the painful truth about her incestuous past and her recovery. The tone of the book is intellectual, mentally stimulating and emotionally engaging.
This is a profound book, for both victims and anyone who appreciates good literature.

It took a lot of courage for Helen Bonner to write this book! The story is at times difficult to read because of the topic and the events the author is revealing. The writing is superb. The story will keep your attention and remain in your memory for a long time. Abused by her father at an early age, a member of a dysfunctional family, Helen has persevered in life becoming an extremely effective professor, speaker, and courageous role model for women who have been forced to walk the path of life she reveals in this book. This book should not be overlooked by anyone in modern society.

Memoirs are much more difficult to comment on than fiction. In fiction, we can at least pretend that we're talking about made-up things, things that never really happened. Historical fiction is even easier to criticize, because the things that happen didn't happen to the author, and nonfiction is a cake walk. The problem with talking about memoir is determining when to stop talking about the book and start talking about the author? Very quickly, it seems to me.


If John F. Kennedy hadn't pre-opted the term, all of Helen's work should be called Profiles in Courage. The first two books she wrote were tell-all memoirs, one set early in her life and one late.

The first, The Laid Daughter: A True Story, depicted up close what it was like to have grown up with a father who sexually abused her at a very tender age in nowhere-near-tender ways (the worst). How could she survive psychologically, much less be able to earn a PhD and write? The reader-reviews on Amazon are bi-modal. Those who hated it (three people gave it the lowest grades, ones and twos) wanted to better understand how Helen got through her ordeal and found her later sometimes-promiscuous love life off-point. Those who loved it (All seven of these gave it the highest grade, fives) saw it as directly on-point in how she survived and how her trust-radar had to be re-calibrated as a functioning adult.

Her second book, First Love Last, another memoir, is set when Helen is in her seventies and her first husband shows up in her life. He's dying, and she manages to forgive him his past transgressions and help him in his final days, even working to re-unite him with his sons, with whom he's been incommunicative. To me, this is even more a Profile in Courage than her first book. Being able to forgive someone, especially someone who has hurt your mutual children, has to be a paramount transcendent human behavior. The message doesn't seem to be lost on her reading public--all of the reader-reviews on Amazon on this book to this point are the highest-level (fives).

I don't usually read a book and feel ripped off (from my time and money). Since I wouldn't recommend this book to anyone, I promptly threw it away when I was finished. Helen Bonner seemed to simply wander through her life with no particular direction. I was frustrated with her inability to stay the course on any one subject. I bought the book because it was marketed as a book about incest. Her sexual abuse comprised about 2% of the content. It was not a book about incest. It was a book about the craziness of the 60s and 70s with free sex, drugs, and self-absorption. If you are looking for a book on incest, you will be very disappointed.

If you're an incest survivor, you might find it worthwhile, because you'll relate to a lot of what's there.

If you're just looking for a satisfying read, skip this book - it's poorly crafted.

I bought this book because i am a survivor of incest. I am nearly thru the book (painfully so... i can usually read a book that size in a day and a half and it has been 2 months!) and most of it is encapsulated with her many 70's style sex affairs... like i said, i am mostly thru the book and it has touched on the incest issues like 2-4 times. To me it is a waist of paper.

I love reading. I love books. This book is awful. I could not even bring myself to finish it. It's so nerve wrecking tring to hold on through the author's many descriptions of everything but the real point of this story. Which is told through ENDLESS mini- side stories. Constant flash backs to her hippy days etc. -N. Hope