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The Three of Us: A Family Story
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Editorial Reviews
From Publishers Weekly
English writer Blackburn (Daisy Bates in the Desert) had two extraordinary parents, poet Thomas Blackburn and painter Rosalie de Meric. Her utterly doting father, who'd sit on the toilet seat and recite poetry with her when she bathed, eventually died of the alcohol and pill addictions that fueled his adult life. Both parents entertained long lists of lovers. After they separated, Julia (who was born in 1948) lived mostly with her mother, who painted heavily symbolic nudes and ethereal landscapes, and the young boarders her mother was forever trying to seduce. As Julia grew older, Rosalie worried that her pubescent daughter was becoming more enticing; enraged, she'd goad Julia into flirtations and then accuse her of spoiling Rosalie's romances. Julia steered clear of most of her parents' sexual nonsense, except for a significant affair with one of her mother's ex-lovers that ended with his suicide. Using excerpts from her own journal, snippets from her mother's papers and her father's poetry, Julia gradually came to terms with something her father told her, that we chose our parents so we must forgive them, if we are to forgive ourselves. Her father wasn't the problem—as bizarrely as he behaved, she'd never felt threatened by him. Instead, it's her mother's endless anger that's the vortex of this strangely compelling memoir. (July)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
Review
"Despite the darkness of the rooms she re-enters, Blackburn's book isn't gloomy in the least . . . However unforgiving her detail, tout comprendre, c'est tout pardonner is the message of this extraordinary book."
--Blake Morrison, The Guardian
"This memoir has warmth and love it's hard to imagine could have been possible. Readers be warned--this is no misery-lit memoir. There's something else going on entirely. [The Three of Us] is also a work of art in itself: a careful weaving in and out of personal memories and present pain to create something remarkable.'
--The Herald
"Gripping . . . What sets Blackburn's memoir apart is her extraordinary ability to sit on the edges of her own drama, to notice the texture, cadence and scent of these lives and to capture th experience with a painterly precision . . . An unnerving book about manipulation and loss, and about the complicated burdens families inflict on one another down through the generations. As a literary memoir of a lost childhood, it is remarkable as much for its candour as its craftsmanship."
--The Sunday Times
"Blackburn details her first sixteen years . . . in such as ingenuous, matter-of-fact manner that she somehow manages to make terrible events seem almost funny . . . The resulting memoir is mesmerizing and brilliant."
--Daily Mail
"This is an astonishing memoir, brave and exquisitely written. The story is riveting, and its ending takes us as well as Blackburn by surprise as her mother's dying becomes the occasion for something that goes beyond reconciliation--a time of grace on both parts. Everything we think we know about families and sex and mother-daughter relations is called into question as Blackburn's unsparing eye is joined by her remarkably open heart."
--Carol Gilligan, author of In a Different Voice and Kyra: A Novel.
From the Hard... --This text refers to the Kindle Edition edition.
See all Editorial Reviews
English writer Blackburn (Daisy Bates in the Desert) had two extraordinary parents, poet Thomas Blackburn and painter Rosalie de Meric. Her utterly doting father, who'd sit on the toilet seat and recite poetry with her when she bathed, eventually died of the alcohol and pill addictions that fueled his adult life. Both parents entertained long lists of lovers. After they separated, Julia (who was born in 1948) lived mostly with her mother, who painted heavily symbolic nudes and ethereal landscapes, and the young boarders her mother was forever trying to seduce. As Julia grew older, Rosalie worried that her pubescent daughter was becoming more enticing; enraged, she'd goad Julia into flirtations and then accuse her of spoiling Rosalie's romances. Julia steered clear of most of her parents' sexual nonsense, except for a significant affair with one of her mother's ex-lovers that ended with his suicide. Using excerpts from her own journal, snippets from her mother's papers and her father's poetry, Julia gradually came to terms with something her father told her, that we chose our parents so we must forgive them, if we are to forgive ourselves. Her father wasn't the problem—as bizarrely as he behaved, she'd never felt threatened by him. Instead, it's her mother's endless anger that's the vortex of this strangely compelling memoir. (July)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
Review
"Despite the darkness of the rooms she re-enters, Blackburn's book isn't gloomy in the least . . . However unforgiving her detail, tout comprendre, c'est tout pardonner is the message of this extraordinary book."
--Blake Morrison, The Guardian
"This memoir has warmth and love it's hard to imagine could have been possible. Readers be warned--this is no misery-lit memoir. There's something else going on entirely. [The Three of Us] is also a work of art in itself: a careful weaving in and out of personal memories and present pain to create something remarkable.'
--The Herald
"Gripping . . . What sets Blackburn's memoir apart is her extraordinary ability to sit on the edges of her own drama, to notice the texture, cadence and scent of these lives and to capture th experience with a painterly precision . . . An unnerving book about manipulation and loss, and about the complicated burdens families inflict on one another down through the generations. As a literary memoir of a lost childhood, it is remarkable as much for its candour as its craftsmanship."
--The Sunday Times
"Blackburn details her first sixteen years . . . in such as ingenuous, matter-of-fact manner that she somehow manages to make terrible events seem almost funny . . . The resulting memoir is mesmerizing and brilliant."
--Daily Mail
"This is an astonishing memoir, brave and exquisitely written. The story is riveting, and its ending takes us as well as Blackburn by surprise as her mother's dying becomes the occasion for something that goes beyond reconciliation--a time of grace on both parts. Everything we think we know about families and sex and mother-daughter relations is called into question as Blackburn's unsparing eye is joined by her remarkably open heart."
--Carol Gilligan, author of In a Different Voice and Kyra: A Novel.
From the Hard... --This text refers to the Kindle Edition edition.
See all Editorial Reviews
Product Details
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Inside This Book
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Key Phrases - Capitalized Phrases (CAPs):
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Cambria Lodge, Doctor Kollestrom, Rosalie de Meric, Black Lion Yard, David Wright, Francis Bacon, Camden Town, Miss Julie, The Priory, East End, Billie Holiday, Thomas Blackburn, Miss Smith, Aaron Juda, Beaker People, Fitzroy Tavern, Uncle Guy Browse Sample Pages:
Front Cover | Table of Contents | First Pages | Surprise Me!
Cambria Lodge, Doctor Kollestrom, Rosalie de Meric, Black Lion Yard, David Wright, Francis Bacon, Camden Town, Miss Julie, The Priory, East End, Billie Holiday, Thomas Blackburn, Miss Smith, Aaron Juda, Beaker People, Fitzroy Tavern, Uncle Guy Browse Sample Pages:
Front Cover | Table of Contents | First Pages | Surprise Me!
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85% buy the item featured on this page: The Three of Us: A Family Story $19.76 |
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