Back in 2018 I went to the Southern Festival of the Book in Nashville for the second time with my good friend, Kathryn. It's a long weekend of many author's speaking about their books in multiple venues. I'd started reading Glen David Gold's Carter Beats the Devil at one time but didn't finish it. Listening to him tell the story of writing this memoir had me adding it to my TBR list and I finally got it from the library this month.
He had a tumultuous childhood, growing up in California with a flitty, flawed, bohemian mother and a boom to bust, cold father. The book focuses on the disastrous relationship with his mother and his finally breaking away from her.
I felt that while their relationship was fraught with dysfunction, he was still a privileged, well-off, only child whose native intelligence did not extend to his emotional smarts.
Quotes:
"Recently a friend asked why it was so hard for me to understand that people are what they do. It was a concept so slipper I needed to write it down and stare at it like an advanced algebraic equation."
"There isn't much that causes people to recoil more than sensing someone wants to be liked."
"Regardless of the pride I took in the empty place in my chest, I still had a contrary faith I believed in so deeply that I'd mistaken it for an axiom. If I love you hard enough I can fix you. It doesn't work like that. This is what I want to say so it's as familiar as the stars and sunrise: your love is not enough.
Published: 2018 Read: September 2020 Genre: Memoir
No comments:
Post a Comment
Post your comments here, would love to hear what you think