Phantom Limb (American Lives) [Hardcover]

Janet Sternburg (Author)

Book Description

Series: American Lives | Publication Date: April 1, 2002

Phantom Limb is a wise and courageous memoir that moves between past and present, chronicling an adult daughter’s journey through the final years of her parents’ lives. A story of discovering love through adversity as well as an inquiry into contemporary neurology and spiritual life, Phantom Limb is a moving meditation on the struggle to make peace with physical and emotional ghosts of the past. Janet Sternburg writes with such warmth and honesty that loss itself becomes luminous: “This is the grace of the last years, the children coming to understand the contradictions in their parents, not to reconcile them but encompass them in a larger love.”

Editorial Reviews

From Library Journal

This is a memoir for anyone who has suffered a significant loss or nursed an aging parent through a long-term illness. Sternburg's mother's leg was amputated yet she continued to feel as if the limb were present; here, the "phantom limb" becomes a metaphor for loss. The author, a poet, essayist, and visual artist, sought to learn more about her mother's condition through consultation with neurologists and a proactive response to her mother's healthcare. The author, who lives in California, was the primary guardian for her Boston-based mother. She arranged to be home by 5 p.m. everyday to talk with her mother and realized her good fortune in being able to fly to her mother's side whenever she was needed. Although she found an excellent domiciliary for her mother, her feelings remained ambiguous as she sought to find the peace with her own physical and emotional ghosts that sitting with her mother could bring. Alternately compassionate, painful, and joyful, this work is recommended for public libraries, particularly those with an aging populace and large self-help and memoir collections. Pam Kingsbury, Florence, AL
Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist

Sternburg's mother lost her leg during her later years yet, like so many who experience such a loss, continued to feel the presence of the lost limb. In setting out to learn more about this baffling condition, called Phantom Limb, Sternburg discovered more than she had expected, encountering and developing new ideas about the mind-body relationship. She suggests that each person suffers from Phantom Limb--that is, from the grievous loss of someone who, though no longer with one, remains a palpable part of one. She approaches that paradox by writing this book that is part moving account of greater love in the face of her mother's approaching death, part medical inquiry into neurology, and part spiritual meditation on the struggles and sufferings that living visits on each of us. In making peace with physical and emotional ghosts, Sternburg shows that emotional and spiritual integration is possible, though born out of pain and loss. Whitney Scott
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 148 pages
• Publisher: University of Nebraska Press; First edition. edition (April 1, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0803242964
• ISBN-13: 978-0803242968
• Product Dimensions: 8.1 x 6.7 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12.3 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,415,107 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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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 Phantom Limb is a wonder, March 12, 2002

By 

Andrea Collier (Lansing, Michigan USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Phantom Limb (American Lives) (Hardcover)

This story is mesmerizing and painfully real to anybody who has lost a parent to illness. It's beautifully told, without being overtly sentimental. Sternberg skillfully lets us enter her world as a daughter, a caregiver and a woman who is also dealing with the baggage of her own illness. You are with her every step of the way. It is rich in its telling and goes straight to the heart.

I also found the detail in which she describes being an advocate for her mother a fascinating study that can be useful to anyone that is put in the situation of navigating care for ourselves or someone else. Phantom Limb speaks to what so many of us have either faced or will have to go through as our parents age. Bravo!

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A poet's understanding of loss, May 14, 2002

By 

Judith Searle (Santa Monica, CA United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Phantom Limb (American Lives) (Hardcover)

What a brilliant, heartbreaking, wise book. The central metaphor is haunting and unforgettable. Janet Sternburg, in her heart of hearts, is a true poet.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A beautiful journey of life, May 2, 2003

By A Customer

This review is from: Phantom Limb (American Lives) (Hardcover)

I read this beautiful book cover-to-cover in one sitting as I just could not put it down. I think the description might be a bit misleading as it makes the book sound like a sad lament of loss, when in fact it is a joyous celebration of life. "Phantom Limb"also puts life into perspective, and will hopefully alter yours--as it has mine.
Ms. Sternburg explores her relationship with her mother and father touchingly, as her tale weaves back and forth from the past to the present, revealing the delicate nature of the human condition. The story is written in searingly honest prose, each one a self-contained vignette that links together to form the memory of whole human lives. This book is not necessarily just for people coping with loss...it's much more than that. "Phantom Limb" does exactly what good literature should do: it transports the reader to another realm, and it's beauty will stay with you, long after you put the book down.