A Wild Ride Up the Cupboards: A Novel [Bargain Price] [Paperback]

Ann Bauer (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: June 27, 2006

Edward is nearly four years old when he begins his slow, painful withdrawal from the world. For those who love him -- his father, Jack; his pregnant mother, Rachel; his younger brother, Matt -- the transformation of this happy, intelligent firstborn into a sleepless, feral stranger is a devastating blow, one that will send shockwaves through every nook and cranny of family life.

A Wild Ride Up the Cupboards is the story of Edward's descent into autism, and Rachel and Jack's struggle to sustain their marriage under this unanticipated strain. Threaded through the novel, too, is the tale of Rachel's late uncle Mickey, who may have suffered from a similar disorder during a time when society's notions of parenting, pediatrics, and psychology were dramatically different from today's. As Rachel delves into her own family history in search of answers, flashbacks to Mickey's life afford moving insights into both the nature of childhood trauma and the coping mechanisms that families employ. Carefully crafted and deeply entertaining, A Wild Ride Up the Cupboards reveals the author's remarkable gift for language and offers a striking exploration of domestic life that will resonate with readers everywhere.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Bauer's nuanced debut chronicles a mother's struggle with her child's mysterious, undiagnosed illness and the once-passionate marriage that doesn't survive the decades of extraordinary stress. Love, marriage and babies follow quickly from Rachel and Jack's first electric meeting, when Rachel is a 20-year-old student at a small Minnesota college and Jack an itinerant worker. But when Edward, the eldest of their three children, turns four, he suddenly transforms from a bright, animated boy to a zombie who goes weeks without sleeping, stares endlessly at his hand and howls to fill a silent room. Settled in Minneapolis, Rachel and Jack try various doctors, codeine and even marijuana tea for their son, who is often mistaken for an autistic, but he stays locked in what he calls, during moments of lucidity, "the nowhere place." Bauer follows the family through Edward's adolescence: Jack struggles with alcoholism and holding down a job while Rachel, a journalist, binds the family together with fierce mother-love. Throughout, Rachel attempts to unravel the mystery of her long-deceased Uncle Mickey, a strange, troubled man whose plight might hold a clue to Edward's disease. Bauer's prose often pierces with authentic, unsentimental power, but blow-by-blow chronological plotting diminishes the novel's grace. (Sept.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Booklist

In her sensitive debut, certain aspects of which were inspired by her own life, Bauer describes what happens to an apparently normal family when one of its members becomes inexplicably ill. Jack and Rachel, pregnant again, have two boys--Edward, nearly four, and Matt, two--when Edward suddenly experiences loss of speech, hyperactivity, and insomnia. They run through a gauntlet of doctors: one thinks the behaviors may be caused by brain tumors; another suggests they try marijuana. Asked to provide family medical histories, Jack and Rachel are faced with unearthing painful memories involving Jack's birth parents, whom he never knew, and Rachel's mysterious uncle Mickey, who exhibited symptoms similar to Edward's and eventually committed suicide. By the time Edward is in seventh grade, he has improved markedly yet still has days when he has "the screens pulled down inside his head." By then the marriage has failed, the stress proving too great for this family in peril, portrayed by Bauer with unflinching honesty. Deborah Donovan
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 288 pages
• Publisher: Scribner (June 27, 2006)
• ISBN-10: 0743269500
• ASIN: B001PO6A18
• Product Dimensions: 7.9 x 5.2 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 5.6 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (21 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,205,230 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

14 of 14 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Can't Wait for Her Next Book December 24, 2005

By Avid Reader

Format:Hardcover

I loved this book on 2 levels: First, having an autistic nephew, I found much in the story that was eerily similar to our own experiences, sometimes with much different reactions and outcomes, though. Nice to see it through another's eyes. Second, Ann Bauer is a gifted story teller. The story captivates the reader with both it's portrayals of the circumstances and the emotional journey of the mother (and father to some extent.) This is not only a story of an autistic child, but is a story of motherhood and a marriage. Don't miss this book. (Beware, some of the reviews below give away far too much of the storyline. I suggest reading only part way if you'd rather wait for the book to give you all the story. Why do reviewers do this?? How inconsiderate.)

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars A wonderful read on many levels August 26, 2005

By steve rosse

Format:Hardcover

This book works on so many levels. It gives us insight into how people with all kinds of cognitive disorders find incomprehensible the world that we take for granted. The book also lets us see into the hearts of two mothers, separated by half a century, who face the terror of losing sons. And it makes an argument, a convincing argument, that sometimes the things we want most in life come at a great price.

Ms. Bauer's writing is clear, lucid, and beautiful. A remarkable first novel from an author I have no doubt we will be seeing more of.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Just buy this woman's book. August 31, 2005

By Heal

Format:Hardcover

I'm blown away. I've been waiting for this book ever since I read some of Ann Bauer's earlier writing: she has a storyteller's knack for writing about the fierce, determined love mothers feel in difficult and confusing situations, situations that don't resolve themselves completely. Bauer writes characters that feel deeply real, human and flawed and admirable and, at times, dislikable. The story has a central focus: a young couple's talky, brilliant son slides mysteriously to the edges of his own mind, skating into territory that sometimes looks like autism, sometimes looks like something else. The book watches the marriage, and the people in it, shift to accommodate the son's mysterious changes. But the story's about more than that: it asks what happens in a family as a result of all that shifting. It asks us to feel a love so fierce, in a situation so pressing, and to question the lengths we'd go to, if that were us. The prose is beautiful, never overwritten, happening in lines that are tight and rhythmically beautiful. Easily the best book I've read this year.