|
Kathryn Harrison's memoir "The Kiss" caused quite a literary stir when it was published in April. There was praise and puzzlement and much pondering on what might come next -- what dark personal revelations would appear in print that could rival the daily fare offered in our tell-all-on-TV era. Harrison, an acclaimed young writer, chose to detail the obsessive love affair she had with her father. It began when she was 20, when the estranged father she had yearned for all her life reappeared, and ended a few dark years later. The memoir deals too with the intricacies of her relationship with her self-absorbed mother, her bouts of anorexia and bulimia, her attempt to reclaim her life and other intimate issues that are vexing, perplexing but, even if you're put off by the central theme, oddly fascinating. Kathryn Harrison reads her memoir in its entirety, and her pain and anguish surface in every phrase.
|
You'll hear anguish in Caroline Knapp's voice, too, as she reads her best-selling memoir, "Drinking: A Love Story." Brutally painful and brutally honest as well, Knapp's scrupulous detailing brought her much praise and little of the consternation that surrounded Harrison's disclosures. Caroline Knapp was a "functional alcoholic" -- she drank when she was happy, anxious, bored or depressed, through college and while working as a successful editor and columnist. But there were blurs and blanks and some dangerous errors of judgment. Finally, and with great effort, she began the long, slow process of disentangling herself from her seductive, destructive addiction -- her "deeply passionate, profoundly complex" relationship with alcohol.
Sukey Howard reports on spoken word audio each month. Don't miss her audio book reviews on CNN's "Sunday Morning."
©1997, ProMotion, inc.
Support your