Citadel on the Mountain: A Memoir of Father and Son - Hardcover

Wertime, Richard

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0374123780 ISBN 13: 9780374123789

Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2000

Synopsis

A warped dream, an overbearing father, and his son

A handsome, brilliant man, the author's father-irascible, strong-willed, a compulsive womanizer-stands at the center of this strangely compelling story.
In the mid-1970s, after a life in government service, which was shadowy in its depths, Ted Wertime built a fortress-like house on a mountaintop in south-central Pennsylvania. He had forged for himself a secondary career as a highly respected historian of ancient science and technology, and was convinced that it was his fate to lead a sweeping revolution that would cleanse the United States of energy abuse, political corruption, and an odd assortment of social ills. His "citadel" would serve as his revolutionary headquarters. He, his wife, and Joan, the last and most troubled of his succession of mistresses, lived in the house together in a bizarre ménage à trois. His dream was to recruit his four sons to take part in his cause.

The author, Richard Wertime, is the second-oldest son. Citadel on the Mountain is the story of his struggle to escape from a domineering and, at times, hypnotizing father who sought to control the sexual and professional lives of his offspring.

About this title

About the Author

Richard Wertime was a longtime editor at Archaeology magazine and is now a professor of English at Beaver College in Pennsylvania.

Reviews

HIn a powerful, tonic memoir, Wertime turns a lifetime of torment at the hands of an abusive parent into a fiercely lyrical exorcism of pain, sorrow and anger. A former editor at Archaeology magazine and now a professor of English at Beaver College, Wertime grew up in both awe and fear of his domineering father, Theodore, who was a historian of science and ancient technologies, an accomplished violinist and violist, an OSS officer in India and China and, by some accounts, a CIA agent serving as cultural attach in Iran in the early 1960s and later in Athens. But, according to Wertime, the urbane scholar and diplomat had a dark side as a macho, authoritarian know-it-all with a sadistic streak. In the mid-1970s, as his behavior became increasingly bizarre, Theodore built a fortress-like house (the "citadel" of the title) on a mountaintop in Pennsylvania, stockpiling goods to prepare for an impending revolution. Inviting his anorexic, alcoholic mistress to live with him, he ordered his subservient, long-suffering wife (the author's mother) to accept a m nage trois. Unprovoked, he shot and killed the family's pet dog. When Theodore was diagnosed with inoperable cancer, Wertime fitfully attempted to draw close to his impossible parent, while also working through the pent-up rage and confusion that derailed his own first marriage and threatened to undo his second. Wertime writes beautifully, with great restraint and with an undercurrent of stymied love. Though his father's death brings neither closure nor absolution, his wise and healing confessional is spiked with razor-sharp insights about coming to terms with death and about growing up with no viable role model. 23 b&w photos. Agent, Amanda Urban. (Sept.)
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Intense emotions infuse this memoir, lending it realism that those in complicated father-son relationships will recognize. They will become inescapably interested in the Wertime family dynamic, curious about what the author's father will say, do, or denounce next, for Ted Wertime brooked no disagreement with his plans, which on occasion bordered on the apocalyptic. After a career in the State Department (possibly as cover for intelligence activities), Ted set to writing, about ancient metallurgy, or about the future of civilization writ large, often demanding that second son Richard (then an English professor) critique his articles. Those critiques instigate searing moments in the memoir, as occasions for paternal thunderbolts about the terms of their relationship. Other disturbing actions of the father (such as foisting a mistress on the family and shooting dead the family dog) add menace to the warring sentiments that animate the author's recollections. The three-dimensional vitality of the father's characterization is a superb effect of Wertime's subtly drawn family life. A finely written memoir. Gilbert Taylor
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Three-quarters of the way through, this reviewer was prepared to pan this book. Why does a son have to air all his family's dirty laundryDe.g., his mother having to share a house with his father's mistress or his father's orchestrating an unwanted sexual liaison between the author and a family friend who had practically been a sister to him? Is it just to exorcise the demons of an autocratic, psychologically abusive, though brilliant parent? And do we really need to know about Wertime's (English, Beaver Coll.) childhood attempt to smother his disturbed younger brother or his pet name for his penis? Ultimately, however, this memoir proves as hard-hittingly poignant as Robert Anderson's play and 1970 movie, I Never Sang for My Father, and all this reader's memories of the minefield that is a father-son relationship come bubbling upDthe harsh words spoken and loving ones withheld, the desire to connect, and the need for independence. Truly, death ends a life, not a relationship. Recommended for most public libraries.DJim Burns, Ottumwa P.L., IA
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Edition details

• Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
• Publication date: 2000
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0374123780
• ISBN 13: 9780374123789
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 192