Genre: Memoir
Description:
“If the Universe gave you the chance to deliver karmic justice, would
you do it?
Lynne Cantwell was the late-in-life child of parents who had already
lost a baby daughter. Her brother, ten years older, delivered emotional and
verbal abuse for as long as she could remember. As a young adult, she moved
halfway across the country to escape him.
Decades later, when their mother’s health began to fail, Lynne was
forced to work with her brother – first to keep their mother in their childhood
home, and then to prepare the house for a sale that never happened. Everything
changed, but the family dynamics stayed the same.
This book – entertaining and heart-wrenching by turns – is a tale of
the way abuse plays out across generations, and of what it takes to end it.”
Author:
“Lynne Cantwell has been writing fiction since the second grade, when
the kid who sat in front of her showed her a book he had written, and she
thought, ‘I could do that.’ The result was Susie
and the Talking Doll, a picture book illustrated by the author about a girl
who owned a doll that not only could talk, but could carry on conversations.
The book had dialogue but no paragraph breaks.
Today, after a twenty-year career in broadcast journalism and a
master's degree in fiction writing from Johns Hopkins University (or perhaps
despite the master's degree), Lynne is still writing fantasy. She is also a
contributing author at Indies Unlimited.
She lives near Washington, DC.”
You can connect with Ms. Cantwell at her website or on Facebook.
Appraisal:
I don’t normally read non-fiction, however this book drew my
attention. I am interested in how people cope with abuse and the extenuating
circumstances that keep them in abusive relationships. Lynne’s abuser was her
older brother (by ten years) with a somewhat complacent mother who either
looked the other way or wrote it off as sibling rivalry. The whole family
dynamic was dysfunctional. Lynne recognized this and did what she could to
survive until she was old enough to move far away. Little did she realize at
the time how emotional abuse infects other relationships that develop in the
future.
I’m sure I grew up in a somewhat dysfunctional family, as many of us
did. I am the oldest of my four siblings, however, I don’t recall any abuse. At
least nothing besides what was considered normal parental punishment at the
time, and we managed to grow up to be successful adults. To be truthful, I am
the most dysfunctional in my family. I claim it is genetics, LOL. That’s my way
of diverting the truth.
Following Lynne’s journey was enlightening, but also baffling, and
heart-breaking at times. Hopefully, we all try to do the best we can with what
we are given. Life is a struggle to keep our heads above the water and it’s
doubly hard when we have those who keep pulling us down, taking advantage of
our basically good hearts. I found Mom’s
House a valiant effort to exorcise demons. Highly recommended.
FYI:
Mom’s
House contains emotional and verbal abuse, no sexual abuse. I mention that
because the book is tagged with sexual abuse on Amazon US, however not on
Amazon UK site.
Format/Typo
Issues:
Nothing to speak of.
Rating:
**** Four Stars
Reviewed
by: ?wazithinkin
Approximate
word count: 50-55,000 words
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