The Middle Place [Hardcover]

Kelly Corrigan (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 8, 2008

"The Middle Place is about calling home. Instinctively. Even when all the paperwork -- a marriage license, a notarized deed, two birth certificates, and seven years of tax returns -- clearly indicates you're an adult, but all the same, there you are, clutching the phone and thanking God that you're still somebody's daughter."

For Kelly Corrigan, family is everything.

At thirty-six, she had a marriage that worked, a couple of funny, active kids, and a weekly newspaper column. But even as a thriving adult, Kelly still saw herself as George Corrigan's daughter. A garrulous Irish-American charmer from Baltimore, George was the center of the ebullient, raucous Corrigan clan. He greeted every day by opening his bedroom window and shouting, "Hello, World!" Suffice it to say, Kelly's was a colorful childhood, just the sort a girl could get attached to.

Kelly lives deep within what she calls the Middle Place -- "that sliver of time when parenthood and childhood overlap" -- comfortably wedged between her adult duties and her parents' care. But she's abruptly shoved into a coming-of-age when she finds a lump in her breast -- and gets the diagnosis no one wants to hear. And so Kelly's journey to full-blown adulthood begins. When George, too, learns he has late-stage cancer, it is Kelly's turn to take care of the man who had always taken care of her -- and show us a woman as she finally takes the leap and grows up.

Kelly Corrigan is a natural-born storyteller, a gift you quickly recognize as her father's legacy, and her stories are rich with everyday details. She captures the beat of an ordinary life and the tender, sometimes fractious moments that bind families together. Rueful and honest, Kelly is the prized friend who will tell you her darkest, lowest, screwiest thoughts, and then later, dance on the coffee table at your party.

Funny, yet heart-wrenching, The Middle Place is about being a parent and a child at the same time. It is about the special double-vision you get when you are standing with one foot in each place. It is about the family you make and the family you came from -- and locating, navigating, and finally celebrating the place where they meet. It is about reaching for life with both hands -- and finding it.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Newspaper columnist Corrigan was a happily married mother of two young daughters when she discovered a cancerous lump in her breast. She was still undergoing treatment when she learned that her beloved father, who'd already survived prostate cancer, now had bladder cancer. Corrigan's story could have been unbearably depressing had she not made it clear from the start that she came from sturdy stock. Growing up, she loved hearing her father boom out his morning HELLO WORLD dialogue with the universe, so his kids would feel like the world wasn't just a safe place but was even rooting for you. As Corrigan reports on her cancer treatment—the chemo, the surgery, the radiation—she weaves in the story of how it felt growing up in a big, suburban Philadelphia family with her larger-than-life father and her steady-loving mother and brothers. She tells how she met her husband, how she gave birth to her daughters. All these stories lead up to where she is now, in that middle place, being someone's child, but also having children of her own. Those learning to accept their own adulthood might find strength—and humor—in Corrigan's feisty memoir.
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Review

"Kelly Corrigan's utterly absorbing memoir, The Middle Place, is wry, smart, and often heart-wrenching. Corrigan takes us down memory lane and then, at the same time, down some other, darker road most of us hope never to travel. Yet we follow her all the way, quite willingly, thanks to her sharp eye and her great sense of humor." -- Cynthia Kaplan, author of Why I'm Like This and Leave the Building Quickly

"The Middle Place is inspiring, luminous, and true. Reading this memoir, I felt like an honorary member of the Corrigan family . . . Kelly Corrigan is a wonderful writer." -- Luanne Rice, author of What Matters Most

"An amazing story told with steep honesty, buckets of humor and, above all, integrity. The Middle Place is memoir at its highest form." -- Darin Strauss, author of The Real McCoy and Chang and Eng

"Kelly Corrigan has a great sense of humor, an honest voice, and a brilliant way of telling it like it is -- but that's just for starters. It's her heart that really counts. The Middle Place is a love letter to family and home and life." -- Linda Greenlaw, author of The Hungry Ocean and Slipknot

"Kelly Corrigan takes what might have been a fairly standard story of survival, and reframes it, most charmingly, as a coming-of-age narrative. We see here a headstrong girl, under the most severe adversity, turn into a genuinely strong woman." -- Carolyn See, author of Making a Literary Life

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 272 pages
• Publisher: Voice; First Edition edition (January 8, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1401303366
• ISBN-13: 978-1401303365
• Product Dimensions: 8.1 x 5.7 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 14.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (206 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #649,355 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Kelly Corrigan is, more than anything else, the mother of two young girls. While they're at school, Kelly writes a newspaper column, the occasional magazine article, and possible chapters of a novel. She is also the creator of CircusOfCancer.org, a website to teach people how to help a friend through breast cancer. Kelly lives outside San Francisco with her husband, Edward Lichty.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

121 of 130 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Started out great, but what happened in the second half?, April 22, 2009

By 

Lia (Boise, ID) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Middle Place (Paperback)

I have struggled with the idea of whether to review this book or not because this book is a memoir about someone's actual life. But I have been mulling this book over for a few weeks since I read it, and frankly, I am mystified as to how it has garnered so many 5 star reviews.

I absolutely loved the first half of the book. I truly did. It was a real, moving, lovely tribute to her dad, known as "Greenie". The anecdotes about him and her early growing up years were so funny. Her description of her family members was so detailed and she gave so many humorous accounts of them, I felt as if I knew them. I also thought how much I would love to have Kelly as a friend. She sounded funny, spunky, and real. If she had stopped the book right there, just as a wonderful reminiscence of her life growing up with her family, I would not be writing what I am about to write.

But just past the second half of the book, the writer's tone and the content becomes whiny, self indulgent, leaving the author sounding like a spoiled child who needs to grow up. She recounts several seemingly unrelated episodes in which she is either bemoaning someone's insensitivity to her needs or is patting herself on the back for how strong she is when she needs to be. Her example of her strength? When she was in the delivery room, she kept screaming "I can't do it!" when it was time to push. But in the end, she stepps up to the plate and pushed, giving birth to her child! What else was she going to do, NOT have the baby?! It is the self-congratulatory way she perceives herself in this instance that is irritating.

The other episodes in which she is complaining about someone's insensitivity reads like a personal diary entry - one we all may make now and then when feeling particularly sorry for ourselves, but not a diary entry we ever expect anyone else to read. She complains that she can't have any more children (she already has two). Then there is the incident at the dinner party with friends where two male friends are talking about how far they have come in getting themselves healthy and in shape. The author then throws a wet blanket on the conversation with them with a "what about poor old me" monologue about how broken she feels since her cancer, and how her body has failed her. Then there is the time she runs into an old acquaintance on the street who hasn't seen her since her cancer and makes a series of very benign remarks about one thing or the other that Kelly finds insensitive, and then states how this "friend" will blanch later when she learns Kelly has cancer and remembers what she said to Kelly. She complains about her husband and his closeness to his family (how ironic is that?), complaining about how he calls them on the weekend when she feels he should be devoting his time exclusively to her and their two children. The poor guy sounded so hen pecked based on her description of the conversation she had with him, I felt sorry for him. And he ends up agreeing, not unagreeably, to no longer phone his parents on the weekend when she is around, but when he is driving home from work!

The only real conclusions I felt the author reached at the end of the book were: (a) until she experiences the death of a parent, she doesn't feel she will really be an "adult", and (b) no one will ever admire, cherish, and idolize her like her father does. The best piece of advice in the entire book comes from her mom. The advice she gives, just prior to Kelly becoming engaged, is for Kelly to not expect too much from people in life because if you don't expect a whole lot, you will never be too disappointed. Sadly, I think Kelly might come across as a happier person had she considered this advice. She seems to expect a lot from everyone throughout the book.

I think the author is a talented writer, and, again, I thoroughly enjoyed the first half of the book. And I think with a bit more editing, or perhaps as a series of essays, this book could have been a better read. But not as a full length book with no conclusions or resolutions of much depth.

For a really touching memoir about parenthood and dealing with aging parents (with a twist) that was written with depth and introspection, I highly recommend "Accidentally on Purpose" by Mary Pols.

57 of 67 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Top Place for Outstanding Memoirs, February 17, 2008

By 

Michele Cozzens "www.michelecozzens.com" (Cloud 8) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Middle Place (Hardcover)

This memoir is filled with love, humility, honesty, compassion and a great sense of humor. Well-written and highly readable, the structure pulls you from cover to cover so quickly, it's readable in one sitting. My one sitting happened to be on a long plane ride, however, the time I spent getting to know Kelly Corrigan and her father, "Greenie," along with the rest of Kelly's family, made the plane not only bearable, but also enjoyable. She moved me from tears to laughter to a place of profound contentment. In the Prologue Kelly tells her readers that the one thing we need to know about her is that she's "George Corrigan's daughter." Ultimately, the one thing I believe this survival story is about is how love of family will see you through anything. Even cancer.

The Middle Place, according to Kelly, is the place between childhood and adulthood. This takes place for her between August, 2004 and August, 2005, which is the essential duration of the story. By alternating chapters between present and past, this young mother moves the reader from the middle place, a place where she learns she has breast cancer, to her past with stories of her life as her parents' child and her brothers' sister. Because Kelly, aka "Lovey," shares the cancer experience with her high-spirited and utterly lovable father, it makes the middle place that much more complicated and rich. She holds back little and seems keenly aware of her reader. Writing outside herself, she keeps readers in the loop in spite of very personal revelations. She is indeed her father's daughter.

A big fan of memoirs, this is one of the best I've read in a long time and I give it my highest recommendation.

Michele Cozzens is the author of Irish Twins

12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars What is all the hype about this book; it is dreadful, February 23, 2010

By 

Tiza "Tiza" (ME) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Middle Place (Paperback)

As so many have written, the author is a whiny self-indulgent adult who needs to grow up. The world appears to revolve around her and she appears to be the only one who knows what should take place, who to contact etc and how people should act or believe. I am just grateful my 30 some children don't feel the need to come in my house and rearrange things and replace valued items as she did with her parents home without their knowledge. I was sickened by her take-over of her father when he was ill. She had no compunction about asking her mother for a loan for their house while admitting that she was Daddy's girl and everything was about Daddy or Greenie as he was called and not her mom. To me the real hero of the book is her husband who tolerates this childish, child-like immature behavior and still appears to love her. I just wanted to shake her and say grow-up. I don't understand all the five star reviews for this book and all the hype surrounding it. I finished it just to see what happened not because I was enjoying the book. I just kept shaking my head unreal the more I read of her personality.