Customer Reviews

In The Shadow of Fame: A Memoir by the Daughter of Erik H. Erikson

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This very moving and fascinating book is a must read on several different levels. On one level, Sue Bloland is addressing an issue we are all so familiar with - fame and the human fascination with either achieving it or connecting with someone who has achieved it. Certainly, as she explains so simply and clearly, it is very human to idealize, envy and project many of our own fantasies (and power)onto the most successful people in whatever field they excel. As an analyst, the story she tells about her life with her father, Erik Erikson, expands and illuminates why some people are driven relentlessly to seek fame; what many issues the famous struggle with internally and silently, and what it is like to be the child in their shadow. She succeeds without jargon or over-intellectualizing in bringing to light the complexities of all these issues and in inspiring compassion for both the admired and the admiring.
On another level, she weaves a fascinating and very colorful tapestry that brings together her parents' histories and experiences, showing us what helped to create the very talented, charismatic and insecure people they were. In the process, we can all identify as we see so clearly the impact of past generations on who we become. These descriptions clarify so beautifully how nature and nurture shape us and our destinies. Thus, in describing her own childhood experiences in the light of her parents very complicated and often fascinating stories she takes us all far beyond anger or blame and leaves us feeling much compassion for everyone involved. This, I feel is the amazing gift tht she has given us in this poignant and beautiful book

Using her own personal history as well as other historic sources, Sue Erikson Bloland documents the phenomenon of "fame" and its origins. Ms. Bloland has described not only her particular situation but the dilema of a generation. At some point in the 20th century, the cult of the individual eclipsed the cult of the collective (religion) and our immersion, both conscious and unconscious, in its web continues to shape our contemporary cultural landscape. This book is aptly packaged as a personal memoir yet Bloland sets the stage for further research as to why fame has become a defining social goal. Her focus is the damage rendered not only to those intimately connected to fame's fall-out but also to a society that diminishes itself as it elevates individuals to super-human status. At the end, Ms. Boland reconciles herself to her family (and heritage) and encourages us to re-examine our own need to worship other mortals. "In the Shadow of Fame" has brilliantly set the groundwork for liberating ourselves from the "cult of the individual" and gently encourages us to humanize the heroes we worship.

This is a beautifully written and insightful memoir about the author's experience as the daughter of the famous psychoanalyst Erik H. Erikson. Bloland's personal struggle resonated deeply with me, even though I have no familial connection with fame. She writes so candidly about her most painful (as well as her most affirming) experiences growing up that the reader is able to identify with her on many different levels. One of the most compelling books I've read in a long time.

The author's father became famous when she was thirteen. He was a cultural icon. What affected Sue Bloland Erikson was the intensity of people's reactions to Erikson's writings.

Media generated stories are like fairy tales. Her father's celebrity diminished the author in her own eyes since her father's fame didn't capture his complexity. In the author's early childhood the family acquired a taboo subject, a handicapped child institutionalized at birth. The three children in the family were told that the baby had died.

The emotional fragility of her parents was sensed by the author very early. She traces the causes to their own childhood experiences. The name Erikson was an invention. (Both parents seemed self-invented.)

Through Peter Blos, a friend, Erikson moved to Vienna in his middle twenties to teach at a school founded by Dorothy Burlingame. He met both Anna and Sigmund Freud at the time. Their recognition of his gifts changed his life forever. (Later Anna Freud perceived Erikson's work as a betrayal of Freudian theory.)

Marriage provided Erikson with physical, emotional, and intellectual support. The tension in the marital relationship turned on Erik Erikson's feelings of personal inadequacy and Joan Erikson's feelings of personal deprivation. The couple adopted a means of coping by emotional avoidance.

Public adoration after CHILDHOOD AND SOCIETY was issued gave Erik Erikson new confidence in his intellectual abilities. As a young adult the author was plagued by feelings of inadequacy, (she didn't feel that she had been chosen by the gods). Early influence had given the author the language of analysis. She began to understand this when she sought therapeutic treatment for herself.

By the mid 1970's Erikson's reputation was being seriously challenged. When her son Per went to college, the author decided to become an analyst. She had to fight her insecurity and her reluctance to exercise authority.

The book has clarity and thoughtfulness. Its narrative encompasses Sue Erikson Bloland's parents' fame and her reaction to it.

The fine balance of the writing is the first thing that impresses. The author is not into throwing stones and appears to have precisely caught the mid-point between unsentimental description and emotional reality. One cannot emerge unsympathetic either to her or her subjects. Then she decribes quite fairly the great irony of how one of modern history's most influential thinkers fell victim to forces that he himself so accurately described. It was Erikson after all who, in his study of Ghandi, described charismatic leaders as attempting to solve for others some problem they have been unable to solve for themselves. Lastly there is the dark warning implicit in the book: none of us are safe, for none of us can tell what decisions made long ago, perhaps in crisis or even calmly and rationally, with the very best of intentions, may return with disastrous unintended consequences to ruin our lives. The best book I've read in five years.

Admittedly, I'm unfamiliar with the work of Erik Erikson. I didn't know he was *that* famous. Ok, I'm ignorant. Unfortunately for the main premise of the book, there are far worse narcissistic parents than hers. I kept thinking, "Gee, her parents were actually pretty nice." I'm sure they were neglectful and self-absorbed but they weren't the worst parents on earth, except in one case: the family tragedy was the birth and utter abandonment of a Down's Syndrome baby because at the time, families often didn't "keep" these babies, and it would have held back Erikson's career. I was fairly shocked by the apparent fact that the parents never even visited this child. The problem I had is, Bloland's life isn't that exciting to read about. She brought in the life of Laurence Olivier and other famous people to pad the book. Then it segued into a discussion about narcissistic parents that is pretty widely known information, and began to read like a class paper. I wonder how her brothers felt about her book; they were barely mentioned.

In the final stage of ego development, Erikson suggests that an acceptance of one's life is an indication of conflict resolution and maturity leading to end-life satisfaction. Having purchased the book because I knew and admired Harland Bloland prior to his recent death,I was eager to explore how this marriage and associations might have influenced this brilliant, humble and patient man who lived so generously in the shadow of others. Many of my questions have been answered about Harland, and my admiration for him has grown. While I did not have the opportunity to know Harland better, it is clear that he was, perhaps, the most centered member of the Erkison clan while he was with them.

That said, at times I found Ms. Bloland's work to be surprisingly elementary, her prose style erratic and seemingly unedited. The dishonesty and trauma surrounding the birth of Neil with Down Syndrome, the facade created by fame and her need to appear perfect, her emotional abadonment--most readers can identify with these issues. Ms. Bloland appears to suffer from hyperinsulation: at times her issues appear to have less to do with the the dark shadow of fame than with living an encapsulated life where she is drowining in psychoanalysis in a Woody Allen world. But there are clear signs of redemption and she appears to be moving toward end-life satisfaction.

Perhaps a good prescription for her latent ennui would be for her to read "Turn Me Into Zeus' Daughter" by Barbara Robinette Moss. Ms. Moss tells her powerful tale of distortion and resileince with remarkably beautiful prose and follows it with a second memoir, "Fierce." Ms. Moss demonstrates the possibility of moving through Erikson's eight stages of development using creativity, determination, and ferocity.