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The Camera My Mother Gave Me (Paperback)

~ (Author) "If you have a vagina you know that most of the time it is without sensation..." (more)
Key Phrases: novocaine cream, alternative nurse, estrogen cream, Doctor Matthew, Doctor Tony, Clinical Journal of Pain (more...)
3.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (23 customer reviews)
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The Camera My Mother Gave Me + The Vulvodynia Survival Guide: How to Overcome Painful Vaginal Symptoms and Enjoy an Active Lifestyle + The V Book: A Doctor's Guide to Complete Vulvovaginal Health
Price For All Three: $32.61

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Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

This isn't a book you'll want to pull out on a crowded train, with clinical terms like clitoris and vulvologist, not to mention earthier ones like the F word, on virtually every page to attract the startled attention of the passenger in the next seat. Bluntly describing her yearlong effort to deal with a searing pain in her vagina, Susanna Kaysen doesn't stint on the details of what this malady did to her relationship with her boyfriend (nothing good), nor is she forgiving of the callousness and stupidity displayed by some of her doctors and various alternative health practitioners. Yet her appalling saga is compulsively readable, thanks to Kaysen's propulsive prose and sharp dialogue. She's particularly good at capturing the way people talk about their ailments over dinner and in the middle of other activities. Conversations with friends ramble from her medical problem to tiger maple furniture in an utterly convincing way, and one darkly funny scene shows a pal urging Kaysen to buy a coral necklace following a particularly horrid visit to the doctor because, "You have to get a nice thing after that appointment." Kaysen's laconic humor keeps the book from seeming self-pitying, though her terseness tends to muffle its emotional impact; she expresses her emotions without really conveying them to the reader in any depth. Nonetheless, the pared-down candor that made her portrait of mental illness so gripping in Girl, Interrupted also distinguishes this account of a decidedly physical affliction. --Wendy Smith --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.


From Publishers Weekly

Eight years ago, Kaysen's affecting story of her two years in a psychiatric hospital, Girl, Interrupted, helped sparked the memoir craze and later became a Hollywood blockbuster. Now Kaysen, also an accomplished novelist (Asa, As I Knew Him; Far Afield), returns with this thin, disappointing chronicle of what happened when "something went wrong" with her vagina. The terse narrative chronicles her quest to determine the cause of and cure for disabling vaginal pain vestibulitis, the medical term for a "sore spot" on the wall of her vagina. The most intriguing element is Kaysen's explosive relationship with an unnamed live-in boyfriend who, despite her pain, pressures her to have intercourse: "I want to fuck you, goddammit, he said, lunging at me, pushing his hand between my legs. I jumped out of bed. I was naked... I ran downstairs. All I could think of was to get away from the bed and from him and his fingers. I pressed my back against the wall in the living room and shook, from cold and the remnants of my desire." Later, sans boyfriend, Kaysen reflects too briefly on how she's changed as her desire for sex evaporates, concluding, "when eros goes away, life gets dull." Stingy with basic facts the reader is left wondering how old she is and how she spends her days (writing? teaching?) the memoir is admirable in its honesty and insights into medicine's limits. (Oct.)Forecast: Already the subject of a New York Times piece suggesting this "autopathography" may become the target of a backlash against such transgressive confessions, Kaysen's slight memoir will spark some controversy, but don't expect Girl, Interrupted-level sales.

Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
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Product Details

  • Paperback: 160 pages
  • Publisher: Vintage (October 8, 2002)
  • Language: English
  • ISBN-10: 0679763430
  • ISBN-13: 978-0679763437
  • Product Dimensions: 8.2 x 5.2 x 0.4 inches
  • Shipping Weight: 6.1 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
  • Average Customer Review: 3.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (23 customer reviews)
  • Amazon.com Sales Rank: #519,155 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Susanna Kaysen
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Front Cover | First Pages | Surprise Me!
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If you have a vagina you know that most of the time it is without sensation. Read the first page
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novocaine cream, alternative nurse, estrogen cream
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Doctor Matthew, Doctor Tony, Clinical Journal of Pain, Charles Street
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Customer Reviews

23 Reviews
5 star:
 (7)
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 (7)
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 (4)
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Average Customer Review
3.6 out of 5 stars (23 customer reviews)
 
 
 
 
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19 of 22 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars grateful to Kaysen for sharing, November 2, 2001
By Erica S. Maniez (Seattle, WA USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   
This review is from: The Camera My Mother Gave Me (Hardcover)
My opinions about Kaysen's books are shaped largely by the fact that I suffer from the same malady this book describes, vulvar vestibulitis, a form of vulvodynia (literally "painful vulva"). It was an overwhelming relief to read this book, to hear another woman talking about her experience with this disorder and facing many of the same challenges I have faced. Among the two largest of these are trying to talk to friends and family about a disorder that few people know about and that very few feel comfortable discussing (how many friends can you talk frankly about your genitals with? think about it) and trying to have an intimate relationship with someone when sex is painful, difficult, or downright impossible.

The book is well-written and very readable. Kaysen even manages to be funny. The novel focuses on Kaysen's personal experience, and does not claim to be a medical guide - this is what makes it an interesting read for anyone, not just those affected with vulvodynia. I disagree with Kaysen's attitudes about potential treatment (she seems to dismiss some things out of hand, in my opinion) but I'm overwhelmingly grateful to her for sharing her experience.

Some statistics say that 15% of women have some form of vulvodynia during the course of their life. If more women with vulvodynia - and more who, like Kaysen, are already in the public eye - would speak out about their experiences, the rest of us would not feel so isolated.

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15 of 17 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars Vulva, Interrupted - realistic portrayal, October 9, 2001
By A Customer
This review is from: The Camera My Mother Gave Me (Hardcover)
As in "Girl, Interrupted," Susanna Kaysen focuses her sharp camera-eye on a reality not often talked about. In "Girl, Interrupted" these realities largely centered around mental illness and definitions of such for women. In "The Camera My Mother Gave Me," the realities are vulvar disorders - causes, treatments, explanations, talking with others about it - and figuring out its meaning.

I liked this book largely because it was a very true story not just about Kaysen's life, but about many women who struggle with a vulvar disorder - be in vestibulitis (as Kaysen has), vulvodynia, lichen sclerosus - even vulvar cancer.

Women with vulvar disorders often wonder if they are alone, why hasn't there been more research in years or in decades (Kaysen and her research and medical colleagues make this point, too) - is this a reflection on mental state? or is there really a physical cause? is it a connection between the two that may exacerbate the terrible lows of the disorder? These are questions that women diagnosed with vulvar disorders grapple with.

It was also fascinating to read this book years after having read "Girl, Interrupted" - and to really empathize with her reaction when she is faced with the prospect of having to take tricyclic antidepressants or an SSRI such as Prozac. Having this thread of her autobiographies gave "The Camera My Mother Gave Me" much added weight.

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14 of 17 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars Honest and remarkable., February 2, 2002
By Meg Brunner (Seattle, WA USA) - See all my reviews
This review is from: The Camera My Mother Gave Me (Hardcover)
My god, what a life Kaysen, the author of "Girl, Interrupted," a memoir about her teenage years in a mental institution, has had. First that and now this -- a follow-up memoir about her experiences years later with a mysterious and ultimately untreatable vaginal syndrome, the main symptom of which is unbearable and constant pain. As she struggles with the pain and her frustration over her doctors' inability to find out what is causing it, she also finds herself battling her boyfriend who has no compassion for her problem and just accuses of her not wanting to have sex with him anymore.

Again, Kaysen does not shy away from all the gory details -- including the intense emotional ups and downs that ensue. But it was really her words on chronic pain that truly affected me. The realization, for example, that, honestly, the pain itself isn't the worst part of chronic pain. The worst part is the fact that you can't ever leave it. Even when you are distracted into forgetting it's there -- it's ALWAYS THERE. And this, more than the pain itself, is what makes people with chronic pain so incredibly exhausted.

As someone in that category myself (though my pain is in my hands), I could really relate to her stories -- her guilt (is this my fault? did I do something wrong? if I don't want to try something that might help, does that mean I don't want to get better?), her frustration, her fear that it's "all in her head," and, most of all, her ultimate decision not to let it rule her life anymore. She says at one point she felt like she'd become a vagina -- a walking, talking vagina, the pain had so consumed her world. And that changed everything. That was unacceptable.

This is a short but incredibly powerful book. Great for chronic pain warriors (I prefer that to "patients" or "sufferers") who crave the validation that comes from hearing someone else articulate what you feel. And, even better, great for the friends and family of CP warriors who struggle to understand but so often just cannot. (...)

In the passage just after this one, she describes chronic pain as being like carrying an unwieldy suitcase around. It's not that the suitcase is too heavy to bear -- it's that you can't ever set it down. That's it. That's it EXACTLY. This is a marvelous book. If Kaysen is reading this: thank you.

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 		 Most Recent Customer Reviews

1.0 out of 5 stars Please Be Careful with This Memoir
I'm not going to complain that a book was published that addressed the issue of vulvar pain and the millions of women who are suffering from it - certain not! Read more
Published 3 months ago by R. Sheils

3.0 out of 5 stars Oh Great!
Great, the joys of pre-menaupause.....really! REALLY! I don't know if I'm glad I read this book.... Read more
Published 8 months ago by Vampara

2.0 out of 5 stars Left so many questions.
I read this book because I was recently diagnosed with vulvodynia. While it was a quick and easy read, it simply left so many unanswered questions for me. Read more
Published 16 months ago by S. Adelman

3.0 out of 5 stars Just a short, simple book
This book reads really fast. A light book compared to the authors other memoir of being in an institution.
Published on August 29, 2007 by B. Flatt

1.0 out of 5 stars Not worth it
I'm not sure which book the other reviewers are talking about when they say this book is funny. I didn't find it funny at all. In fact, I found it tiresome. Read more
Published on August 25, 2007 by Newsie

5.0 out of 5 stars Informative and Witty
Kaysen is an excellent writer and that is why I decided to read "the Camera My Mother Gave Me." The book worries me because I am a woman - all though I do not suffer from any... Read more
Published on August 18, 2006 by E. Pardovich

1.0 out of 5 stars not so good
I read this book and after getting through about a third of it I started to get frustrated. I kept asking myself why she didn't go see another doctor. Read more
Published on April 28, 2006 by Analytical Reader

3.0 out of 5 stars Left hanging
While the book was a quick, funny read the end left me hanging. Did she try acupuncture? Did she ever get better? Was she happy or sad at the end?
Published on May 12, 2005 by K. Lnae

4.0 out of 5 stars great....another horrible condition for women to worry about
Kaysen's experience rings true with just about any condition women have that men typically don't get. Read more
Published on May 2, 2005 by Debbie Savannah George

4.0 out of 5 stars Honey, it's not a camera. (kidding)
Although I understand-- you are viewing your life through the lens of your mothers' perceptions of female sexuality.... (Thus Camera/lens metaphor),... Read more
Published on April 13, 2005 by busybooklover

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