The Middle Place: Corrigan, Kelly: 9781401340933: Amazon.com: Books

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The Middle Place

by Kelly Corrigan (Author)

4.4 845 ratings

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"The Middle Place is about calling home. Instinctively. Even when all the paperwork -- a marriage license, a notarized deed, two birth certificates, and seven years of tax returns -- clearly indicates you're an adult, but all the same, there you are, clutching the phone and thanking God that you're still somebody's daughter."

For Kelly Corrigan, family is everything.

At thirty-six, she had a marriage that worked, a couple of funny, active kids, and a weekly newspaper column. But even as a thriving adult, Kelly still saw herself as George Corrigan's daughter. A garrulous Irish-American charmer from Baltimore, George was the center of the ebullient, raucous Corrigan clan. He greeted every day by opening his bedroom window and shouting, "Hello, World!" Suffice it to say, Kelly's was a colorful childhood, just the sort a girl could get attached to.

Kelly lives deep within what she calls the Middle Place -- "that sliver of time when parenthood and childhood overlap" -- comfortably wedged between her adult duties and her parents' care. But she's abruptly shoved into a coming-of-age when she finds a lump in her breast -- and gets the diagnosis no one wants to hear. And so Kelly's journey to full-blown adulthood begins. When George, too, learns he has late-stage cancer, it is Kelly's turn to take care of the man who had always taken care of her -- and show us a woman as she finally takes the leap and grows up.

Kelly Corrigan is a natural-born storyteller, a gift you quickly recognize as her father's legacy, and her stories are rich with everyday details. She captures the beat of an ordinary life and the tender, sometimes fractious moments that bind families together. Rueful and honest, Kelly is the prized friend who will tell you her darkest, lowest, screwiest thoughts, and then later, dance on the coffee table at your party.

Funny, yet heart-wrenching, The Middle Place is about being a parent and a child at the same time. It is about the special double-vision you get when you are standing with one foot in each place. It is about the family you make and the family you came from -- and locating, navigating, and finally celebrating the place where they meet. It is about reaching for life with both hands -- and finding it.

Print length

272 pages
Language

English
Publication date

January 1, 2009
Reading age

18 years and up
Dimensions

5.25 x 0.72 x 8 inches
ISBN-10

1401340938
ISBN-13

978-1401340933
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Customer reviews

4.4 out of 5

845 global ratings

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Kindle Customer

Spoke to my heart

Reviewed in the United States on June 1, 2016

Verified Purchase

Like Kelly Corrigan , I am a breast cancer survivor. Even though I have been cancer-free for over 15 years, this book brought it all back. When you have cancer, you're swept up in the process. The medical care providers have ways of doing things, everyone has an opinion, and sometimes even your friends say the dumbest things. It's all consuming, and there's such a sense of urgency. You want to ask questions and think about options, but you're told there's no time, and you're sucked into it.

Like Kelly, I also had a father with cancer, although unlike Kelly and her dad, we were not in treatment at the same time. Also unlike Kelly, I did not have a good relationship with my father. I was very young when he had his first bout with cancer, but I still remember very well the frustration I felt as he shopped around for a diagnosis more agreeable to him than cancer. I remember shouting at him - "You'd rather DIE than have surgery?? You'd rather DIE than take care of your family??" (BTW he did have surgery and lived through two more bouts of cancer.) Kelly very accurately describes what it's like to be the advocate for a reluctant cancer patient.

This book will hit you in the heart if you have cancer, are a cancer survivor, or are caring for someone with cancer. If you are fortunate enough to have not been touched by cancer, this book will help you understand what it's all about. I looked at some of the one and two star reviews, many of which stated that Kelly sounded whiny and self-indulgent. I strongly disagree! Having cancer threatens everything you are and everything you have. Perhaps you have to experience it to understand some introspection is appropriate when your life is at risk and you are facing your own mortality.

And if you are a daughter who had a poor relationship with her father, Kelly's strong and loving relationship with her father may make you a bit jealous and bring on a few tears.

I thought this was a lovely book. I will be purchasing the print edition to add to the lending library I maintain for the autobiography class I teach. And I don't do that with many books!

2 people found this helpful

It's About Life, Not Death

Reviewed in the United States on September 18, 2009

Verified Purchase

Someone said every book is ultimately about death. That thought applies to Kelly Corrigan's memoir, The Middle Place. Corrigan, a young wife and mother in her thirties faces her own mortality with a breast cancer diagnosis. At the same time she desperately strategizes with her family of origin to find the best treatment for her beloved father, also diagnosed with cancer. She is caught in the middle place between protecting her children and her father. Death is the centerpiece of this plot. The reader wants cures for both of these wonderful people.

But Corrigan balances grim facts with wit and humor. Her voice is chatty and intimate. She brings life and love to the pages with portraits of her father, her funny brothers, her long-suffering mom, her darling husband and two cute kids. Corrigan takes time to honor those she loves with words. Her texts brim with specificity and life. She doesn't leave out the struggles. When she is jealously annoyed to find her husband Edward talking on the phone to his parents, she knows she is being irrational and unfair. Her husband's kindness and acceptance of her craziness makes the reader love him even more. Corrigan contrasts her love for her father, which is total and unrestrained, to the love for her mother which has limits. She shows real life, and flawed people coming together in crisis.

Most of us try to keep thoughts of our inevitable demise in check, but with Kelly and her family the reality of death is too clearly defined by results from the medical lab. While the reader cannot deny the pain of this memoir, Corrigan finds irony. With death as the initial plot Corrigan writes about life. She spells out the details of everyday life and relationships, not death. She lives life with humor and passion even as she is faced with dying. Each day matters. Each relationship matters. This facing-death memoir is really about life.

2 people found this helpful

Nancy T. Luckey

not what I expected

Reviewed in the United States on July 16, 2022

Verified Purchase

This author is the center of her world. The book started off being interesting but dissolved into an emotional mess.

Like Finding a New, Funny Friend Who Tells Great Stories

Reviewed in the United States on March 29, 2008

Verified Purchase

I can't believe I'm only the second person to review this on Amazon. That's okay, because the author Kelly Corrigan, might actually read this then.

Kelly (and everyone else), AWESOME book. I picked up the book at Borders while I waited for my husband to finish deciding on a purchase. The cover and blurb made me only mildly interested. But in the five minutes that I read I thought, "Wow, this is really good." And the next day I checked on Amazon to see if there was an audio version, which there was, and I heard a snippet of the audio which is played with the video on this page. I assumed it was 'read by the author.' I think I assumed that because the story is deeply personal and so is the telling of it. 'Reading' doesn't do justice to how this book comes alive.

I do much of my 'reading' as I drive to and fro work on a long commute and this book falls into my category of being so good that I 1) am sorry to have finished it. 2) brought it inside my house to play while I did dishes. Just listening to it on the car ride was not enough!

Somewhere in the Epilogue or Acknowledgements, there is a statement that the author is "not really a writer, but just a housewife with a laptop." Oh, no you don't. 'Writer' doesn't even do justice to the great storytelling ability of Kelly Corrigan. This is a tremendously honest and poignent narrative that will touch your heart.

9 people found this helpful

Top reviews from other countries

K. Lanser

Triggered me a little ...

Reviewed in Canada on June 18, 2009

Verified Purchase

Kelly is an amazing writer ... liked her metaphors and comparisons ... but found myself a little triggered by her apparent preference for her father over her mother. Kelly confirms the notion that father's get the glory when the mother's do the bulk of the work ... Just wished she had honored her mother's presence in her life as loudly as her father's. Her mom must be an amazing woman!

DubaiReader

Life affirming

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on July 24, 2011

Vine Customer Review of Free Product( What's this? )

Yes, I agree with reviewers who felt this was a bit Middle America, a bit OTT, but I found it an enjoyable read.
I am fascinated by the idea of a 'Middle Place' and I guess that is exactly where I am now, so I could relate to it personally.
The fact that both Kelly and her father were battling cancer together was so emotionally involving that I found this hard to read at times. I was totally drawn into their relationship and that of the other members of the family.

It was cheering to read a book with so much love, rather than animosity between people.
Recommended to pick you up when you're feeling low, in spite of its subject matter.

D. W. Miller

Please please do not miss this

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on January 18, 2010

Vine Customer Review of Free Product( What's this? )

I only need to write a brief review of this book as it is not a complicated one.
It is about love and in particular the form it can take in one's middle life. Dealing with serious illness in her father and herself the main character shows and gives love that is an example to all. I found this an uplifting read and can only hope that should I be dealt a similar hand I would play it equally well.

One person found this helpful

Fletch-a-sketch

Garrulous Charmer

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on August 7, 2011

Vine Customer Review of Free Product( What's this? )

This book is OK, easy to read, and a good story not much else to say, if you have read the synopsis then you have an idea what it's about, and will want to buy it, which I can recommend

Friendly Face

Heartwarming

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on February 4, 2010

Vine Customer Review of Free Product( What's this? )

"Greenie" (author's dad)is someone we would all love to know. The love between father & daughter is obvious and wonderful to read about. Many could benefit from reading this to find out how this relationship should always be but, sadly, often isn't. It is the genuineness of this relationship that stops the book from being as depressing as a book about cancer patients could easily be. It had me thinking often about my own dad and how lovely he was too and how much I miss him still after eight years. I am so grateful for the reminder as to how lucky I am to have had such a great dad.

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