Order from a Major Online Bookstore
Ultimate Book Price Comparison Engine
Save Your Time And Money
| AnyBook4Less.com | Order from a Major Online Bookstore |
|
| Home | Store List | FAQ | Contact Us | | ||
| Ultimate Book Price Comparison Engine Save Your Time And Money |
||
 |
Title: The Nearly Departed: Or, My Family & Other Foreigners by Brenda Cullerton ISBN: 0-316-16253-1 Publisher: Little Brown & Company Pub. Date: 02 May, 2003 Format: Hardcover Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $23.95 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.6 (5 reviews)
Rating: 4
Summary: There once was a time....
Comment: I must say that I particularly enjoyed the review of the Fla. resident. I am a 23 year resident of this town that Brenda C
ullerton describes. I only wish I had known her, AND her family! The "McMansions", now an everday word here, are ridiculous! She saw it with the building of one behind her own home!!
But the most compelling thing about the book is the waste,of human lives!! These people were disfunctional, no doubt about it!And probably would be charged with "child endangerment" today. But the love that the author shows for her mother and father, NO MATTER THEIR QUIRKS, and her inability to express that love, makes a true study in the nature of human beings!Sometimes, we lose what we choose to. She chose to make it front and center in this book! I can't say that I agree with all the author did, nor her family!! Some people will go "AGHG"! But as a resident of this town for some time, it sure is nice to see the veneer crack, and people weren't so perfect I truly loved when she described her mother gardening in her black bra and baggy panties!! And her mother going to town in the pink foam rollers!!That would be a REAL NO- NO today! This is a town of "Stepford Wives"! Would THEY go to town in pink foam rollers and snap-it beads?? Thanks, Brenda, for bringing a little "real" back to Ridgefield!!!
Rating: 4
Summary: An intriguing and touching collection of family memories
Comment: Far from prosaic and most definitely diverting, Brenda Cullerton's unabashedly candid memoir "The Nearly Departed: Or, My Family & Other Foreigners" is a refreshing departure from the autobiographical norm. Dancing between dark humour, stinging wit and poignant life realities, the author's recollections of her wildly outlandish family are often more bitter than sweet. To be sure, the collective confessions from the 'Cullerton Family Crypt' will have you sobbing, guffawing, sighing, and feeling strangely schizophrenic - all in one chapter.
The truth is, Brenda Cullerton's family would raise anyone's eyebrow. At the forefront of these eccentric anecdotes are her parents - a social misfit mother who gardened in baggy black undies, lavish jewelry coupled with pop-it beads, and her hair bedecked in curlers; and an alcoholic father who was usually found anywhere but home, and amassed a hidden fortune as traveling businessman in the shoe trade (only to later hide his cash in their dilapidated barn, stuffed in the toes of moldy footwear).
Now in their winter years, Brenda Cullerton's parents - suffering from ill health - evoke her return to this alien landscape called "home". As the author painstakingly sifts through piles of family memories encountered along the way, not only does she learn more about these virtual "foreigners" who are family, but ultimately discovers herself and the all reasons for her insatiable desire to escape the past.
Artfully and intelligently captured on paper, it is Cullerton's ingenuous journey through introspection which makes "The Nearly Departed" quite nearly flawless.
Rating: 5
Summary: It's all in the family.....
Comment: I read a review of "The Nearly Departed" in the Ridgefield Press, which I still have delivered to my new address in another state. The review had me laughing so hard, I decided that I simply had to get this book. Having spent 23 years in Ridgefield, CT was a plus as I could picture so many scenes as described and these are NOT things one would see in Ridgefield! Perhaps one would see people going down a Main Street in pink foam curlers elsewhere, but certainly not there. Now that that is in perspective, Brenda Cullerton has a wit that will get you laughing out loud, but the book is so much deeper than one might first think. I realize that the average family is dysfunctional to a degree. Unfortunately for Brenda, her family seemed to encompass every dysfunctional element known to man! Hopefully in writing this book, she was able to come to terms with issues in her life; I know that in reading it, she helped me to both understand and come to terms with some things in mine. Thank you Brenda, for both a terrific laugh and a learning experience.
 |
Title: Getting Mother's Body : A Novel by Suzan-Lori Parks ISBN: 1400060222 Publisher: Random House Pub. Date: 06 May, 2003 List Price(USD): $23.95 |
 |
Title: Midsummer by Marcelle Clements ISBN: 0151008361 Publisher: Harcourt Pub. Date: 01 May, 2003 List Price(USD): $24.00 |
 |
Title: Dry: A Memoir by Augusten Burroughs ISBN: 0312272057 Publisher: St. Martin's Press Pub. Date: 02 June, 2003 List Price(USD): $24.95 |
 |
Title: Sins of the Seventh Sister : A Novel Based on a True Story of the Gothic South by Huston Curtiss ISBN: 140004538X Publisher: Harmony Books Pub. Date: 01 April, 2003 List Price(USD): $24.95 |
 |
Title: What Was She Thinking?: Notes on a Scandal: A Novel by Zoe Heller ISBN: 0805073337 Publisher: Henry Holt & Company, Inc. Pub. Date: 01 August, 2003 List Price(USD): $23.00 |
Thank you for visiting www.AnyBook4Less.com and enjoy your savings!
Copyright� 2001-2021 Send your comments
