Wish I Could Be There: Notes from a Phobic Life [Bargain Price] [Paperback]

Allen Shawn (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 29, 2008

In addition to being the son of famous New Yorker editor William Shawn and brother of the distinguished playwright and actor Wallace Shawn, Allen Shawn is agoraphobic—he is afraid of both public spaces and isolation. Wish I Could Be There gracefully captures both of these extraordinary realities, blending memoir and scientific inquiry in an utterly engrossing quest to understand the mysteries of the human mind. Droll, probing, and honest, Shawn explores the many ways we all become who we are, whether through upbringing, genes, or our own choices, creating “an eloquent meditation upon the mysteries of personality and family”* and the struggle to face one’s demons.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Starred Review. The author's rampant agoraphobia and compensatory claustrophobia leave him terrified of almost any unfamiliar space, including highways, fields, elevators, bridges, tunnels, heights and airplanes; a walk down a country lane leaves him panting and paralyzed with fear. In this absorbing memoir, Shawn—a composer, son of legendary New Yorker editor William Shawn and brother of actor Wallace Shawn—approaches his panics from several angles. He explores the neurophysiology of phobic fear as an exaggerated, partly hereditary version of the innate human response to environmental threats. But he also offers a heavily Freudian account of his own panics, linking them to his parents' overprotectiveness and the resulting psychosexual and oedipal conflicts he suppressed from childhood onward. The latter perspective informs his vivid portraits of his family life; his brilliant, conflicted father, who suffered from similar phobias; and his autistic twin sister. Drawing on the writings of fellow agoraphobes like Emily Dickinson and Blaise Pascal, Shawn makes his fear of vast, exposed spaces a metaphor for humanity's existential predicament, an inchoate realization that "our brief life span is surrounded on all sides by nothingness." The result is both a lucid explication of psychopathology and a deeply felt evocation of a "pain in the soul." (Feb. 7)
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

*Starred Review* A composer, pianist, teacher, and author of a book about Arnold Schoenberg, Shawn is plagued by agoraphobia. Afraid of both open and enclosed spaces, and new places, his fears wreak havoc in his life. Shawn has always tried to conceal these inconvenient phobias, but now, in a deeply personal and brilliantly analytical performance, he explains what it feels like to experience these incapacities, delineates the physiological processes involved, and considers how fear, a survival mechanism, becomes a handicap. Shawn creates elegant metaphors and memorable analogies as he explicates the workings of the brain and offers fresh and provocative readings of Darwin and Freud. And then there is the memoir aspect of his probing inquiry. Allen is twin to a mentally disabled sister and the brother of actor and playwright Wallace. Their father was famed New Yorker editor William Shawn, a man of as many phobias as accomplishments whose longtime extramarital affair with colleague Lillian Ross cast a pall over his family. In assessing his complex legacy, Shawn anchors his simultaneously disquieting and affirming study of phobias to real life and uncloaks many essential facets of the human condition. Donna Seaman
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: Penguin (Non-Classics) (January 29, 2008)
• ISBN-10: 0143113070
• ASIN: B001G8WKNK
• Product Dimensions: 7.6 x 5 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 5.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (25 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #508,040 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

50 of 53 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Insightful, Thoughtful, Inspirational, February 21, 2007

By 

Jessilynn Almstead "Mittens" (New York, NY) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Wish I Could Be There: Notes From a Phobic Life (Hardcover)

This quick read gives an in depth look at the science behind fear and the realm of emotion, and acts as a memoir at the same time. I recommend this book to anyone who battles phobias, panic, anxiety, shyness, communication difficulty, autism, and any mental illness. The role of family is central, and definitely inspires deep thought about the reader's own experiences, even if very different from the author's. Most people can relate to at least some aspect of the author's account. It ends optomistically, offering new perspectives on phobias and fear as individuals, society and human beings.

16 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars "I have been dragging a ball and chain everywhere I go.", February 11, 2008

By 

E. Bukowsky "booklover10" (NY United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Wish I Could Be There: Notes From a Phobic Life (Hardcover)

In the foreword to Allen Shawn's "Wish I Could Be There: Notes from a Phobic Life," the author states that he has been afflicted with agoraphobia ("an abnormal fear of being in crowds, public places, or open areas, sometimes accompanied by anxiety attacks") throughout his adult life. When a friend suggested that he write a book about his struggles, the fifty-seven year old Shawn "balked at the idea of presenting this aspect of [himself] in print." The reader quickly senses the author's reluctance to lay his soul bare. Shawn states, "I have not attempted a memoir in a ... comprehensive sense." Therein lies the problem. Instead of letting us into his world and providing meaningful glimpses of his day-to-day life, Shawn keeps us at arm's length. Except in passing, he does not discuss his marriage or his children. Using stilted and formal language, he spends many pages discussing "the brain, the physiology of fear, the way we form habits of thought and behavior, [and] what Freud was trying to describe of the inner life of the mind...." For those not studying to be clinical psychologists, these passages are slow going. Even when Shawn reveals details about himself and his family background, he does so with such detachment that it is difficult to identify with his plight. This sentence says it all: "I have deliberately tried to make my own past into something of an abstraction so that the reader is encouraged to think about his or her own life." "Wish I Could Be There" provides an intellectual perspective into the evolution and biological roots of fear. However, it will disappoint those who prefer a livelier and more anecdotal approach.

Shawn is afraid of heights, traveling by water, open parks, fields, bridges, closed-in spaces, wide-open spaces, tunnels, elevators, and subways. He forces himself to travel, in spite of the anticipatory anxiety that he endures before each trip and his exhaustion when the excursion is over. During panic attacks, he has one or more of these symptoms: nausea, a tightening of the muscles, breathlessness, a raised heart rate, and a feeling of intense isolation. His is "a circumscribed world," but he has managed to enjoy romantic relationships and a fulfilling life as a musician and teacher. There may be a genetic component to Shawn's problems, since his father, William Shawn (who edited "The New Yorker Magazine" for thirty-five years) was phobic and his mother had emotional problems that plagued her for years. In addition, Shawn has always felt deeply saddened about the plight of his twin sister, Mary, who is mentally disabled lives in an institution. His experiences growing up in a family "with many invisible barriers" and secrets (including a hidden affair that his father conducted with a colleague for more than forty years) may have contributed to his troubles.

If you enjoy first person accounts of individuals who courageously confront mental illness, I recommend the superb "The Center Cannot Hold" by Elyn Saks. Ms. Saks's story is amazing and well-written, but what makes it outstanding is her unflinching honesty, clarity, and personal approach to her subject. "Wish I Could Be There" may too clinical and dry for most laymen.

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Often fascinating, and very lucid, January 20, 2008

By 

Debra Hamel (North Haven, CT) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Wish I Could Be There: Notes From a Phobic Life (Hardcover)

Allen Shawn's book on phobias is often fascinating, sometimes hard going, and always written in laudably precise prose. Shawn's approach to the subject is two-fold. In several chapters he discusses the science of phobias. He writes, for example, about the various types of phobia, about the functioning of the brain, about how the brain responds to fear, about Darwin and Freud. Though a layman, Shawn has done a lot of research on the topic, and he is clearly a very smart guy. These chapters of the book were, for me, the boring bits, but I can easily imagine a more scientifically inclined reader enjoying them as much as the rest of the book.

Shawn also discusses the subject of phobias from a personal perspective. He is riddled with phobias himself--the fear of elevators and of tunnels, of closed spaces and open spaces and unfamiliar routes. Though he's managed to enjoy a successful career as a composer, his agoraphobia has significantly curtailed his activities. In exploring his life as a phobic, Shawn unpacks his childhood, subjecting his family's dynamics to dispassionate analysis. His was an unusual family.

Shawn's parents were themselves both neurotic. Many subjects were taboo in the home--the relationship of the meat on one's plate to its animal source, for example, his mother's mental health, human sexuality:

"Before I left for music camp at thirteen, my father told me that I might encounter an activity called masturbation while I was there, but he looked as if he might be about to commit suicide after our conversation."

Also unmentioned was the fact that Shawn's father (William Shawn, who was the editor of the New Yorker for 35 years) was living a double life, carrying on a long-term relationship with another woman, whose existence was known to his wife but not his children. That so many subjects were off-limits, and that a great secret was being kept by the parents, put an emotional strain on the family. Shawn was also scarred by his early separation from his twin sister, Mary, who was autistic (a modern diagnosis of her developmental problems) and was institutionalized at the age of eight. (Shawn's older brother is the actor Wallace Shawn.)

Shawn's discussion of his parent's neuroses and the impact they had on his family, so lucidly discussed, makes for riveting reading. Here, for example, is a description of how his mother's need to control events was sometimes manifested:

"She couldn't and didn't drive, and she shared my father's need to direct every turn a driver should make while taking her somewhere. On the occasions when we traveled as a family in a rented car with a driver, she held the map and dictated every move. A drive to Lincoln Center was planned almost like a military campaign. A taxi driver would be addressed with the utmost courtesy but in a manner appropriate for someone who didn't speak English, did not know the city well, and was hard of hearing. Neither of my parents would ever have dreamed of stating the destination at the outset of the drive. The exact route was doled out slowly, and the final destination always saved for last. 'Thank you. Now, we want to go down FIFTH AVENUE to the EIGHTY-FIFTH STREET TRANSVERSE...and then across to...COLUMBUS.'"

I should add that Shawn's account is utterly devoid of rancor: he is not out to blame his parents for his own problems. In exploring the roots of his phobias he is laying bare the strange environment in which they were nurtured, but his approach is analytical. He could almost be an anthropologist describing the habits of test subjects. The result is a very interesting read.

-- Debra Hamel