The Talking Cure: A Memoir of Life on Air [Hardcover]

Mike Feder (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: June 5, 2001

As a kid growing up in Queens, Mike Feder identified with Scheherazade of The Thousand and One Nights: "The idea of someone having to tell a new tale every night to prevent their head getting chopped off seemed sadly familiar to me."
Back then, the author's audience was his mentally ill mother, who used to stay in the house all day with the shades drawn, and then insist that her son tell her stories so that she might vicariously experience the world outside. Eventually she committed suicide, and Feder grew up to be a relentless, comic storyteller on the radio. The Talking Cure tells the story of his ridiculous jobs, first failed marriage, the string of psychiatrists, and the misery of reluctant fatherhood; throughout he maintains a kind of bizarre balancing act--hilariousness and deep seriousness, conventionality and strangeness. An ironist and a comic, Feder looks unflinchingly at his own foibles and frailties, enabling him to connect to other people's stories.
The reader emerges from this book with a sense of forgiveness for the human condition, and awe at the mystery of human life. Deeply funny, and at the same time breathtakingly dark, this is a book to provoke, amuse and, in some strange way, reassure: God loves a challenge.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

In the '80s, a type of performance art sprang up in New York that was half Rousseau, half comedy routine. Karen Finley and Spalding Gray were the pioneers of this form, as was a New York radio personality, Mike Feder. Feder's new book shoehorns the stream-of-experience confessional into the lyrical novel form pioneered by Henry Miller, and the result is a seemingly uncensored cascade of petty vices and city adventures. Usually, this kind of thing is well criticized by La Rochefoucauld's dictum, "The extreme enjoyment we find in talking about ourselves should make us fear that we are not giving very much to our audience." Remarkably enough, Feder never lapses into tedium. His account of his psychological aches and pains his crazy mother in Queens, who eventually killed herself; the two times he spent in mental wards; his distant relationship with his father and search for a father figure after his real father died; the breakup of both of his marriages, his volatile career in New York radio and theater is fed by a high-voltage self-awareness, an utter surrender to his inner rhythms. His descriptions of his first stage monologue "I talked straight ahead, hardly a pause for breath, for at least an hour, sometimes more" could pass as an explanation of the way this book is paced. Sometimes his revelations are embarassing do we need to know all the ways that he competed with his three-year-old daughter, Sarah, for his wife, Susan's, attention? but his inability to sort out the trivial (including an old complaint about a bad review his first book, New York Son, received from PW) from the important lends his book its bizarre, endearing authenticity. (June)
Copyright 2001 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal

Longtime radio storyteller and Off Off Broadway performer Feder grew up in Queens, New York, across the street from a cemetery. He also regularly viewed his ranting mother being hauled away to mental hospitals. Later in life, he would twice voluntarily check himself into mental institutions, both times as a result of breakdowns that were, seemingly, beyond his control. This memoir recounts Feder's younger years, as well as the stories behind his creative successes and failures, including the genesis and production of his previous book, New York Son; his years as the host of a stream-of-consciousness radio show on WBAI in New York; and the situations in his adult life that brought about his one-man stage presentations. Looming over this entire story is Feder's account of the psychological treatment that both helped and hindered him. This is a stunning read, gripping and relentless in its portrayal of Feder's often-terrifying experiences. Recommended for libraries in the New York City area and academic libraries with a media focus. David M. Lisa, Wayne P.L., NJ
Copyright 2001 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 416 pages
• Publisher: Seven Stories Press (June 5, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1583220410
• ISBN-13: 978-1583220412
• Product Dimensions: 6.3 x 1.2 x 9.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.6 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (10 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,921,206 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Talking Cure, July 4, 2001

By A Customer

This review is from: The Talking Cure: A Memoir of Life on Air (Hardcover)

A great read. My usual complaint about memoir writing is that the author usually vents his/her sorrowful experience and solves everything with a neat literary ribbon. Feder doesn't do that. The honesty with which he tells his story includes the consequences of his fraility and, at times, self-involvement. Just when you think a situation is heading in one direction, life throws Feder a curve; something with which we all can relate. He writes about his mentally ill mother and difficult father without playing the blame game. Pick this one up, particularly if you're tired of big baby memoirs.

5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A HEROIC AND MOVING STORY!, August 18, 2001

By 

Edward Field (new york) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Talking Cure: A Memoir of Life on Air (Hardcover)

This is an awesome book, harrowing, but at the same time often funny -- hilariously funny, in fact, for Mike Feder is a master storyteller and, as this book demonstrates, a brilliant writer too. His material, the subject of his riveting monologues on stage and on the radio, is the story of his exhausting life - the nightmare childhood, the mental hospital incarcerations, the jobs that stand out as cameos of relief, the failed marriages, a brief, dizzying flirtation with fame - and, ultimately, his surviving the crash back to reality. The key to his miseries was his psychotic mother who, early on, is destroyed by a psychiatric system that doesn't really know what to do with the unhappy creatures dumped on it. Shock treatments seemed a shortcut back to normalcy, so they burned out her brain. Mike could never escape the little boy who grew up with that crazy woman, obsessively talking about it, not only to numerous psychiatrists but, especially, on his weekly radio program on WBAI-FM, when he pours his heart out to his listening audience, many of them, like me, who also had a history of mental problems and long years of psychotherapy. That is his true "talking cure." The climax of the book is his brief, fantastic success as a stage performer when the New York Times gave him a rave review for his one-man show, bringing Hollywood offers, and dreams of wealth and glory - all of which came to nothing and brought on his worst bout of depression -- that he only came out of when he met a truly nurturing woman at last. With no obvious marketable talent except his gift for talk, and living in a world where you are expected to be a winner, or at least support your children -- all the parents of his childrens' friends were moneyed professionals -- he has never sold out, kept true to himself, and chosen his own difficult path. It is that that his listeners love him for. And it illuminates every page of this book.

4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A wonderful, ferociously entertaining read, July 15, 2001

By 

"plattsville" (New York) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Talking Cure: A Memoir of Life on Air (Hardcover)

I'm not usually a fan of memoirs, but I read this in two sittings. Feder's compulsive honesty is fascinating. He doesn't spare anyone, least of all himself, as he tells the story of his failures as a husband (twice), father, and Hollywood schmoozer, and his success at one thing: talking. (Note to Mr. Feder: you are also an excellent writer.) Anyone who has worried that their dark side is too frightening to share with others will relate to this wonderful book. Also, those with bipolar disorder will find much to identify with. I was truly sorry when the book ended! I wanted more!