Best of
Memoir

1983

Alex: The Life of a Child


Frank Deford - 1983
    Her poignant and uplifting story touched the hearts of millions when it was first published and then made into a memorable television movie. A new introduction contains information on the latest cystic fibrosis research, and a touching postcript reveals how the Deford family came to terms with the loss of Alex.Whenever he speaks, sportswriter Frank Deford knows people will bring articles for him to sign. But what makes him happiest is when someone attends a sports-oriented lecture and brings a copy of Alex: The Life of a Child for him to sign. "Invariably, and happily, there's usually someone at each appearance who either brings that book or wants to talk about their connection to cystic fibrosis." Deford says. "It's tremendously gratifying to me. Rarely does a week go by that I don't get a letter about that book. People leave things at her grave. They really do. I have people tell me that she changed their lives. It's terribly dramatic, but they literally say that. I heard from a woman who became a pediatric nurse after reading the book. Hearing from people like that means more to me than anything."

Murphy's Boy


Torey L. Hayden - 1983
    He didn't talk. He hid under tables and surrounded himself with a cage of chairs. He hadn't been out of the building in the four years since he'd come in. He was afraid of water and wouldn't take a shower. He was afraid to be naked, to change his clothes. He was nearly 16.Desperate to see change in the boy, the staff of Kevin's adolescent treatment center hired Hayden. As Hayden read to him and encouraged him to read, crawling down into his cage of chairs with him, Kevin talked. Then he started to draw and paint and showed himself to have a quick wit and a rolling, seething, murderous hatred for his stepfather.

Home before Morning: The Story of an Army Nurse in Vietnam


Lynda Van Devanter - 1983
    After high school she attended nursing school and then did something that would shatter her secure world for the rest of her life: in 1969, she joined the army and was shipped to Vietnam. When she arrived in Vietnam her idealistic view of the war vanished quickly. She worked long and arduous hours in cramped, ill-equipped, understaffed operating rooms. She saw friends die. Witnessing a war close-up, operating on soldiers and civilians whose injuries were catastrophic, she found the very foundations of her thinking changing daily. After one traumatic year, she came home, a Vietnam veteran. Coming home was nearly as devastating as the time she spent in Asia. Nothing was the same -- including Lynda herself. Viewed by many as a murderer instead of a healer, she felt isolated and angry. The anger turned to depression; like many other Vietnam veterans she suffered from delayed stress syndrome. Working in hospitals brought back chilling scenes of hopelessly wounded soldiers. A marriage ended in divorce. The war that was fought physically halfway around the world had become a personal, internal battle.Home before Morning is the story of a woman whose courage, stamina, and personal history make this a compelling autobiography. It is also the saga of others who went to war to aid the wounded and came back wounded -- physically and emotionally -- themselves. And, it is the true story of one person's triumphs: her understanding of, and coming to terms with, her destiny.

Now and Then: A Memoir of Vocation


Frederick Buechner - 1983
    Spiritual and autobiographical reflections on the author's seminary days, early ministry, and writing career.

A Country Year: Living the Questions


Sue Hubbell - 1983
    Keeping bees, she found solace in the natural world. She began to write, challenging herself to tell the absolute truth about her life and the things that she cared about. The result is one of the best-loved books ever written about life on the land, about a woman finding her way in middle age.

Out on a Limb


Shirley MacLaine - 1983
    An outspoken thinker, a celebrated actress, a truly independent woman, Shirley MacLaine goes beyond her previous two bestsellers to take us on an intimate yet powerful journey into her personal life and inner self. An intense, clandestine love affair with a prominent politician sparks Shirley MacLaine's quest of self-discovery. From Stockholm to Hawaii to the mountain vastness of Peru, from disbelief to radiant affirmation, she at last discovers the roots of her very existence. . . and the infinite possibilities of life. Shirley MacLaine opens her heart to explore the meaning of a great and enduring passion with her lover Gerry; the mystery of her soul's connection with her best friend David; the tantalizing secrets behind a great actor's inspiration with the late Peter Sellers. And through it all, Shirley MacLaine's courage and candor new doors, new insights, new revelations-and a luminous new world she invites us all to share."A stunningly honest, engrossing account of an intimate journey inward. Shirley MacLaine's discovery of a new sense of purpose, joy, energy, and love will touch and astonish you."-- "Literary Guild Magazine" ."An immensely appealing woman-bright, open, straightforward, sincere."-- "The New York Daily News"

One Writer's Beginnings


Eudora Welty - 1983
    In a "continuous thread of revelation" she sketches her autobiography and tells us how her family and her surroundings contributed to the shaping not only of her personality but of her writing. Homely and commonplace sights, sounds, and objects resonate with the emotions of recollection: the striking clocks, the Victrola, her orphaned father's coverless little book saved since boyhood, the tall mountains of the West Virginia back country that become a metaphor for her mother's sturdy independence, Eudora's earliest box camera that suspended a moment forever and taught her that every feeling awaits a gesture. She has recreated this vanished world with the same subtlety and insight that mark her fiction.Even if Eudora Welty were not a major writer, her description of growing up in the South--of the interplay between black and white, between town and countryside, between dedicated schoolteachers and the public they taught--would he notable. That she is a splendid writer of fiction gives her own experience a family likeness to others in the generation of young Southerners that produced a literary renaissance. Until publication of this book, she had discouraged biographical investigations. It undoubtedly was not easy for this shy and reticent lady to undertake her own literary biography, to relive her own memories (painful as well as pleasant), to go through letters and photographs of her parents and grandparents. But we are in her debt, for the distillation of experience she offers us is a rare pleasure for her admirers, a treat to everyone who loves good writing and anyone who is interested in the seeds of creativity.

Minor Characters: A Beat Memoir


Joyce Johnson - 1983
    Allen Ginsberg. William S. Burroughs. LeRoi Jones. Theirs are the names primarily associated with the Beat Generation. But what about Joyce Johnson (nee Glassman), Edie Parker, Elise Cowen, Diane Di Prima, and dozens of others? These female friends and lovers of the famous iconoclasts are now beginning to be recognized for their own roles in forging the Beat movement and for their daring attempts to live as freely as did the men in their circle a decade before Women's Liberation.Twenty-one-year-old Joyce Johnson, an aspiring novelist and a secretary at a New York literary agency, fell in love with Jack Kerouac on a blind date arranged by Allen Ginsberg nine months before the publication of On the Road made Kerouac an instant celebrity. While Kerouac traveled to Tangiers, San Francisco, and Mexico City, Johnson roamed the streets of the East Village, where she found herself in the midst of the cultural revolution the Beats had created. Minor Characters portrays the turbulent years of her relationship with Kerouac with extraordinary wit and love and a cool, critical eye, introducing the reader to a lesser known but purely original American voice: her own.

The Magic Apple Tree: A Country Year


Susan Hill - 1983
    Looking out from Moon Cottage, Susan Hill records the sights and smells, the people, gardens, animals, births, festivals and deaths that mark the changing-seasons in the small Oxfordshire community.

Aunt Arie: A Foxfire Portrait


Linda Garland Page - 1983
    For all those who have read and cherished the Foxfire books, here is a loving portrait of a fondly remembered friend. This book is not just about Aunt Arie; it is Aunt Arie. In her own words, she discusses everything from planting, harvesting, and cooking to her thoughts about religion and her feelings about living alone. Also included are testimonials from many who knew her and a wealth of photographs.

Blue Remembered Hills: A Recollection


Rosemary Sutcliff - 1983
    Since her novels are so compelling, it is of interest to read of the author's beginnings, and who she eventually became: a recipient of the Carnegie Award, and the OBE.

Migrations of the Heart


Marita Golden - 1983
    In those turbulent years, she gained a profound understanding of what it means to be black in America.While studying in America, she met Femi, an African man. They fell in love and she journeyed to Nigeria to become his wife. In Africa, plunged into a culture so very different from her own, but one she felt she should understand, Marita Golden learned about both her own new sprawling Nigerian family and Nigeria's large American community.But Femi, once her strength, began to insist she fit herself into the strict mold of his society and assume the submissive role of a Nigerian wife.In her new, strange surroundings, Marita Golden discovered that home is not simply a destination, but rather something you must carry always inside you."A marvelous journey . . . powerful imagery . . . distinctly drawn characters come alive, events pulsate with energy." -- The Washington Post Book World

The Ghost Walker


R.D. Lawrence - 1983
    His endearing story describes the special relationship between man and wild animal, and of his own survival alone in a perilous and unforgiving wilderness. But foremost, The Ghost Walker is a story of a patient and dedicated pursuit to understand the elusive puma and its place in the environment.

Over the Wire: A POW's Escape Story from the Second World War


Philip H. Newman - 1983
    After several failed attempts he got out over the wire and journeyed for weeks as a fugitive from northern France to Marseilles, then across the Pyrenees to Spain and Gibraltar and freedom. He was guided along the way by French civilians, resistance fighters and the organizers of the famous Pat escape line. His straightforward, honest and vivid memoir of his work as a surgeon at Dunkirk, life in the prison camps and his escape attempts gives a fascinating insight into his wartime experience. It records the ingenuity and courage of the individuals, the ordinary men and women, who risked their lives to help him on his way. It is also one of the best accounts we have of what it was like to be on the run in occupied Europe.

The Baby Chase


Tony Kornheiser - 1983
    

They Won't Take Me Alive: Salvadorean Women in Struggle for National Liberation


Claribel Alegría - 1983
    

The Yellow Star


Simcha B. Unsdorfer - 1983
    

We Walked Then Ran


Alice M. Shipley - 1983
    We Walked Then Ran is her own story of those momentous experiences.

Anne Frank's The Diary of a Young Girl


Eugenie Harris - 1983
    Each volume helps the reader to encounter the original work more fully by placing it in historical context, focusing on the important aspects of the text, and posing key questions.Monarch Notes include: Background on the author and the work Detailed plot summary Character analysis Major themes in the work Critical reception of the work Questions and model answers Guide to further study

Easy Going


Leon Hale - 1983
    Looking and listening are his forte as he takes a relaxed ramble through the back roads of central Texas, across the Gulf Coast Prairie, and into the Piney Woods and Lower Rio Grande Valley. Everywhere he goes he finds uncommon ordinary folk: a bridge-burning sheriff, a country blacksmith still plying his trade, hardworking illegal aliens, a young man dying with quiet grace.Hale's approach to all he encounters is easy going, unpretentious, open to surprises. This allows him to rejoice in simple pleasures: good food at a generous table; the natural beauty of fields and forests; small domestic joys that so many of us take for granted -- such as picture taking at a family picnic, the happy company of a talkative baby, the "fierce" celebration of a sixtieth birthday, or a day that is special and luminous for no definable reason.Renewing acquaintance with these classic columns originally compiled in 1983 demonstrates most vividly the ambiguity of time's passage. Even as the stories recount in many respects a lifestyle that no longer exists, they astonish with the freshness of their telling and show the vividness and individuality this vanished lifestyle allowed.Here are stories about his mischievous Cousin C. T.; Peerless Ellisor, whose summary of wisdom after eighty-four years is that "a man must have love in his heart: " Sam Dement, who sells magazines door to door in a rural area, just as Hale'sfather did during the Depression; and John Rotan, who left a nursing home to live alone in a tin shack deep in the woods he loves.There are also tales of remarkable occurrences, such as his father's experience with a grateful panther; or when fifty birds discovered the delights of ice-skating; or when Uncle Rhodie's hitchiking bear took over driving duties.Among many other things. Hale muses upon the timelessness of sandlot baseball, the reasons why people fish, memories of a first kiss, and the endurance of old time expressions such as "getting easy", and "back-reaching".And most of all, in this splendid collection, he reminds us of the richness of our state and its people as depicted by a person whose ability to see through stereotypes to the heart of things has yet to be equaled.

Freed For Life


Rita Nightingale - 1983
    

Bizarro!


Tom Savini - 1983
    Many of these photographs have never been seen before. All the effects he has created in each of his films are explored and explained. Also included are step-by-step make-up demonstrations (shot especially for the book) to offer budding make-up artists and film fans a firsthand look at how cinematic illusions are created.For the first time, Tom Savini has put his knowledge of technique and his experience in the field of special make-up effects down on paper. Bizarro is both a chronicle of his work and a learning guide for anyone who wishes to pursue special make-up effects as a career.Tom Savini not only makes dreams real-he brings nightmares to life. In Bizarro he shows step-by-step how he created some of the most amazing special make-up effects in horror films today. Savini's films include Creepshow, Friday the 13th, Eyes of a Stranger, The Burning, Maniac, and The Prowler. His effects range from walking corpses to exploding zombies. He has also created some wonderful monsters, including Creepshow's Fluffy and Friday the 13th's spine-tingling Jason.TOM SAVINI is an actor and stuntman, as well as being one of the top make-up artists in film.

To Kill an Eagle


Edward Kadlecek - 1983
    All of the informants either knew Crazy Horse themselves or had been told about him by older relatives.