Customer Reviews

Memory Slips: A Memoir of Music and Healing

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

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.

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.

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.

An absolutely stunningly clear account of losing memory- and many of the complexities within this experience- and of reclaiming resilience, balance, and self. As Cutting loses her memory of the music she is performing (music she has memorized and played over and over) in the process of working through her child abuse history, her story is a highly interesting account of the complexities of "memory slips" in an adult. Cutting navigates her history of child abuse with incredible strength and determination, and ultimately with great compassion for her family. Beautifully read by Cutting- some of her piano playing is on this audio cassette which is one reason I would recommend the audio version. Her musical expression is an important part of her story. The audio may be helpful for both women and men who have experienced sexual abuse as children/ adolescents as well as for those who want to understand the impact of this kind of an abuse history. In addition, this audio may be highly valuable in exploring the specific psychological dynamics that can arise with those who are or have been musical performers. The depth of this audio is difficult to articulate- the exploration of family psychological dynamics is worth every penny.

In an era when shock value is the order of the day, it is exhilarating and refreshing to read such an artful, restrained, dignified, humane, even gentle work on a subject of such importance. MEMORY SLIPS is an elegant, powerful, memorable book, and Linda Cutting is a writer of rare gifts.

"Giving voice to what was once unutterable has saved my life" states Linda K. Cutting on page 237 of her memoir, 'Memory Slips'. This memoir is about a young woman who has suffered sexual abuse at her father's hands. As a pianist, memories of her childhood abuse take the form of 'memory slips' when she performs in concert. Her inner and therapeutic journey is revealed in metaphor with music.

The author also grapples with the suicides of her two brothers and her mother's disbelief that the sexual abuse actually occurred. The author realizes that "the cost of keeping silent are suicidal feelings, self-mutilation, eating disorders" - the list goes on.

This is a poignant and tragic story. However, it is also one of resilience and hope as the author heals from her past. I highly recommend this book.

So very glad to have discovered this audiocassette in a discount
bookstore nearby before making a long trip in my car. What glorious music! What a unique autobiography, I never hear such
a perfect combination of writing and music - and some of my
favorites! Schumann's Scenes from Childhood ... And the Beethoven and Rachmaninoff, a magnificent pianist to enjoy for
hundreds of miles! I was also a prizewinning pianist, and had
memory-slips galore, and other similar experiences to relate to!
My most favorite audiocassette of all time.

This memoir of an extraordinarily gifted pianist who found the courage to get help for the years in which she was sexually abused by her clergyman father stands out among similiar memoirs. That she not only found the courage to heal but to report her father to the church is a remarkable testimony to what good therapy, support, one's dedication to their craft, and personal determination to heal can do. The author's brothers were likewise abused, and wound up dealing with depression and mental illness. That the author's piano lessons first served as a bargain between her and her father, as a bribe for not telling about the abuse, makes her journey both as a professional musician, a writer, and a human being especially poignant.

In "Memory Slips", concert pianist Linda Katherine Cutting chronicles her gradual breakdown and healing as she comes to terms with the horrendous abuse, physical, emotional and sexual, that she suffered at the hands of her parents as a child. Included in this memoir is the erosion of her career due to memory loss; her hospitalization and treatment, the disintegration of her first marriage, and her slow, painful, climb back to life.

This book testifies to both the worst and best of the human spirit: agonizing, as one relives the abuse Ms. Cutting suffered, and heroic, as she fights to reclaim her life and music. The abuse she suffered becomes all the more real under the dignified, poised and restrained words she uses. A deeply wrenching and uplifting book.

A memoir differs from an autiobiography because the author is not insisting on the truth of every unimportant detail. The author uses either fiction or nonfiction as is best to illustrate a greater truth. Whether every paragraph of a memoir has actually occured outside the author's imaginations does not detract from the legitimacy of the broader issues the author brings into focus. I do not doubt any of the important claims Cutting makes, and I don't think her motive is to deceive us with any falsehoods into taking her side. In the end, even she is able to show compassion and strive for understanding. This should be the emphasis left in the reader's mind, not whether she made any of it up.