Memory Slips: A Memoir of Music and Healing [Hardcover]

Linda Katherine Cutting (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 1997

A concert pianist describes how the sudden resurgence of repressed memories of years of sexual abuse by her father and the suicides of her two brothers destroyed her ability to remember and produce music, and her painful struggle to confront the past and regain her life. 35,000 first printing. $30,000 ad/promo.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Concert pianists perform from memory, a brutal but inescapable convention of musical life. Of all the demons they face onstage, none is greater than the fear of a memory slip. Cutting's bitter, dignified memoir tells the story of a musical life nearly shipwrecked by childhood molestation at the hands of her minister father. Beginning with a terrifying slip that triggers the gradual breakdown of a successful concert career, the narrative moves through hospitalization, painfully recovered childhood memories, and finally, a struggle toward compassionate understanding and a truce with the past. Throughout, she weaves the powerful theme of music: as a bribe, an addiction, a joy, and an escape.

From Library Journal

A concert pianist who has performed with many top orchestras such as the Boston Symphony, Cutting writes a poignant, moving account of the mental illness she suffered as a result of abuse in childhood. After the suicides of both her brothers, Cutting's "memory slips" became more severe, and she herself was hospitalized as suicidal. Her tale of remembrance and healing is a remarkable survival story. The language's lyrical beauty lifts it above other memoirs of abuse. An excerpt in Cosmopolitan and an author appearance on the Today show will fuel interest in this book. For public libraries.
-?Marguerite Mroz, Baltimore Cty. P.L.
Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 240 pages
• Publisher: Harpercollins; 1st edition (January 1997)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0060187301
• ISBN-13: 978-0060187309
• Product Dimensions: 7.9 x 5.5 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12.8 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (10 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #693,147 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #78 in Books > Biographies & Memoirs > Arts & Literature > Composers & Musicians > Classical

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars the most honest portrayal I have ever read, December 31, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: Memory Slips: A Memoir of Music and Healing (Paperback)

the 1st review asks, Is this true? I'd like to ask why the reviewer chooses to ask that question. A truly human account of what it's like to have this happen to you. Not a courtroom drama nor an attempt to prove anything to anyone -- that is totally beside the point. I routinely recommend this book to everyone I know. The author's truth is unquestionable.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Too much music tech, December 5, 2007

By 

E. S. Charpentier (Brainerd, MN United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Memory Slips: A Memoir of Music and Healing (Paperback)

This memoir described one month in the recent past of the author, while she was in therapy and one year in her less recent past. The convention of switching back and forth between the time periods and showing the correlations between events was less confusing than I thought it would be. The musical terminology and descriptions of pieces of music were much more confusing to me. She described her feelings a lot of times in terms of certain concertos and symphonies. I don't read music at all, and I had a hard time grasping the point of what she was trying to say.

I also didn't feel that the book really resolved. She went through a lot of abuse and broken relationships and her therapy was all about coming to terms with that. She described the process of that very well, but even though the book includes a 'Coda' (Epilogue) that takes place 3 years later and then the entire work was copyrighted 2 years after that, the author does not say how she now relates to her family and whether her father continues to be an abusive clergy person. I'm glad she can play the piano again, but I'd like to know how other things are going as well....

Possibly I shouldn't have attempted reading a memoir so steeped in musical theory with my lack of knowledge on the subject, but I was reading for the personal story, which I thought got lost amidst all the musical analogies. Also, I understand that this is probably a very difficult process, to write about one's childhood abuse, so I feel apologetic for judging the work rather harshly.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Similar life, January 16, 2000

By 

A Customer - See all my reviews

This review is from: Memory Slips: A Memoir of Music and Healing (Paperback)

I've read this book with a mixture of tears and relief. In reading it, I've relived a life of torment and pain, which I could only escape through music. I am now a professional oboist (freelance) and, while I love music, I only have this career because I practiced to escape mental, physical and sexual abuse. To read Ms. Cutting's words and memories was to learn that others have shared my pain and my experiences. Thank you, Linda, for writing so much of what I have felt and could never say.