Customer Reviews

Live Through This: A Mother's Memoir of Runaway Daughters and Reclaimed Love

5 star:		(10)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

Live Through This (aptly titled after Hole's post-Cobain grief album, which Gwartney gave her daughters one Christmas) describes the disappearance and return of two of Gwartney's four daughters, teenage girls who chose to leave their mother and then, finally, to come back. The book details the family's collapse, month by month, and the start of its rebuilding. It exposes a truth most would prefer to avoid: There are some situations in which it's genuinely impossible to figure out the "right" thing to do.

Gwartney recounts the end of her marriage to a charming Peter Pan-- a man who tells his daughters that the child support he sends should be given directly to them as a kind of glorified allowance-- and the two daughters who simply cannot cope with their newly reconfigured family. Finding solace in the street culture of Eugene, Oregon, they begin to disappear for days and weeks at a time, a behavior that escalates until they hop a freight train and leave town, one for several months, the other for a year. During their absences, Gwartney tries to keep the rest of her family together, parenting her remaining two daughters, going to work, spending thousands of dollars on private investigators and, whenever the girls are found, rehabilitation programs and therapists and private schools. This is a book about desperation and helplessness, about grief and guilt, about accountability and loss, about love and resentment, about the unanswerable questions a mother and her daughters ask in the face of circumstances that simply make no sense.

This is a book that exonerates no one and vilifies no one. In careful, expert, calm prose, Gwartney tells this story with heartbreaking vulnerability and honesty. This is not an easy book to read, which makes doing so all the more important and worthwhile. It is life laid bare; it is everything a memoir should be.

I read "Live Through This" voraciously over the course of two days. Debra Gwartney's journey through her daughters' long months of running away is painful and honest and unflinching, while making for an utterly un-put-down-able story. Her ability to consistently implicate herself in the dynamic of the threesome is not only brave, but also gives the story much of its weight and heft. The book is meticulously well-crafted while never seeming over-written or overwrought. There were a number of times, especially as I approached the end, that I wondered how the book could possibly be wrapped up in a satisfying and realistic way. The final chapter exceeded my expectations, managing to be affecting and full of surprising hope without one word of insincerity or treacly sentiment.

Greatest virtue -- the lean, blunt clarity of the tale and the prose. No comment, just story. And a hard story, a family shattered; but the manner of its telling, without treacle and sermon and easy conclusion and sentimentality, is a real feat. Gwartney just tells you what happened and you get to dig everyone trying to be graceful under duress -- two girls thrashing toward what they might be, and entering incredibly dangerous waters; their other sisters watching with fear; and the mother, alone, weary, terrified, trying to hold the family together. What seems, on the surface, a harrowing tale, isn't -- it's a story of shaggy courage all round. A remarkable read. Highly recommend.

I agree with Cynthia's review...this is a mother's memoir, and therefore the memories she shares with such bravery and honesty are hers, not her daughters' or her ex-husband's. She admits to mistakes and resentments that some parents may find hard or uncomfortable to admit themselves, but that are real and honest nonetheless. She doesn't ask for pity, nor does she overdramatize any given situation. She lets her clean, sparse language show us how family disfunction can spiral and how every member plays a part in it.

The book is subtitled "A Mother's Memoir"; I would not have purchased it if it were "The Runaway's Memoir". I already remember that memoir because I lived it for some years: Hookup for drugs, sleep in odd place, walk around in dirty jeans, be cold, steal something, have sex with someone.

This book is about the Mother and is very unique in that authentic perspective.

I read it in one sitting; I applaud the Mother for not only managing to survive, but for seeing all four girls to an incredibly positive outcome.

I would just hope someday I would have the courage, elegance and talent to write about my life the way Debra Gwartney does in Live Through This. This raw, totally honest, and non judgmental memoir is the best book of its genre I have read. I am so appreciative that she would share this story with all of us so we may learn whatever lessons we can from her incredible journey. I would give this 10 stars if allowed

Even parents with partners know the day-to-day challenges of raising children in a fragmented world, especially teens. Devotion to creating a safe and healthy home with family time, enrollment in after school activities and lots of parental presence is not always enough. Doing it all alone is mind boggling. My late husband specialized in troubled adolescents and his experience showed me that even the most dedicated parents have little to no control over their teens once they leave the house. What Debra Gwartney lived through in her 24-hour a day efforts to make a home for her four daughters and keep them safe brought tears to my eyes. I understand the living fear that eats away at the soul when a child makes poor choices that put their life and their future at risk. Gwartney's willingness to keep trying against all odds,even the most on-the-edge strategies, to save her daughters' lives moved me deeply. Anyone who finds fault with this parent has never walked this path. I have, but only to the tiniest fraction of what she had to endure, and I commend Gwartney's daily courageous efforts to retrieve her 2 oldest children from darkenss while managing to maintain a loving home for her 2 youngest. And all this without any support from the "system" at all. The fact that Amanda and Stephanie are alive today and living good,creative lives is testimony to Gwartney's tireless love.

While many parenting books champion smug how-to advice about how a super parent can solve any problem, Gwartney's tale of ferocious love and ardent efforts is void of any self-righteous advice. It is an introspective, epic, and honest tale, beautifully told. This Homeresque odyssey to reclaim a family is a study in unconditional love.

This mother, who searches for a way to save her daughters and tries the few options available to her, is unable to restore her family. She loves and mothers the daughters at home and loves the daughters who reject her mothering as well as her very presence. Gwartney's quiet strength and anguish seem to tremor on the page. Live Through This illustrates the complexity of lacerated relationships, which makes this literary memoir essential reading.

When recently browsing for some books to read on an upcoming trip with long flights, I saw this book, and in particular its subtitle was such that I felt a need to pick this up.

In "Live Through This: A Mother's Memoir of Runaway Daughters and Reclaimed Love" (240 pages), author (and mother of 4 daughters) Debra Gwartney retells the improbable but true story of how her two oldest daughters, apparently distraught over a messy divorce between their parents, started 'acting up', staying out late, skipping school, etc. Wonders the author: "How could I impress on my own children how anguishing it was not to know where they were for a whole night? Mostly I wondered this: how do you get any kind of control back once it's utterly, totally gone?" That control doesn't come back, and eventually at the ages of 16 and 14, the two girls ran away from home completely. The author of course examines what she could have done better/different, suffering from tremendous guilt over it. After 3 months, the oldest returns home, but it would take much, much longer for the other daughter to do likewise.

This is another one of those hard-hitting books that if you yourself are a parent, you can only hope you'll never have to "live through this". Yet, as compelling a read this is, I nevertheless felt somewhat unsatisfied at the end, since at no point in time do we get any sense of what the girls are thinking. Years after the facts, the author reflects: "I've not asked why [her second daughter ran away], and she's not said why, and month after month, the why of our once-separation becomes less important." I can see the point, to a degree, but it still leaves me for wanting to here more. (Think of the outstanding companion books by David Sheff and Nick Sheff, bringing the same story twice, once from the dad's perspective and once from the son's perspective.)

I picked this book up after listening to a podcast of Gwartney and her daughters on "The American Life". I just finished the book today, and while it was a compelling read I found myself having a really hard time understanding why Gwartney felt compelled to write this book. Despite making every effort to paint herself as nothing more than a worried mother who would go to the ends of the earth to get her daughters and help them get right, Gwartney came across as extremely selfish and self-involved. I came away from this book feeling as though it were written with the intent of proving that Gwartney was the most competent, caring, compassionate mother who was constantly victimized by her daughters. I don't doubt that Gwartney is a competent parent; I do, however, doubt that the intent behind this book is coming from the right place. Still, it's a good read that gives some interesting things to consider with regard to how our society views runaways, their parents, and who the system is actually geared to help.