Vertigo: A Memoir - Hardcover

DeSalvo, Louise

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0525939083 ISBN 13: 9780525939085

Publisher: Dutton Adult, 1996

Synopsis

The author recounts her life as a working-class daughter of Italian immigrants, her rebellion against that life, and her eventual metamorphosis from young mother to published author and Professor of English

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Reviews

DeSalvo (Conceived with Malice) frankly, and wisely, states that her memories of how she grew from a working-class, Italian American child in Hoboken to become a Virginia Woolf scholar may not be accurate because memory cannot always be trusted. This account, with its emphasis on her early years, is the way it seems to her to have been. Her happiest time, she claims, was during WWII, when the world as she saw it was composed only of women and children (she was only three at the war's end). Then the men returned and life became grim. Later her mother became depressed and was institutionalized, her sister committed suicide, she herself was sexually abused by a female family member. Books and the public library were her refuge. In hindsight she finds parallels between her life and Virginia Woolf's that might escape a casual reader. She also sees them in Alfred Hitchcock's Vertigo, which she saw 11 times in one week when she was 15. A more exuberant period came in suburban Ridgefield, N.J., during what she calls her boy crazy period: "I have, in quick succession, 'dated' the entire starting line up of my high school's basketball team... many of its football players, all the baseball infielders, and a few wrestlers." DeSalvo clearly has a sense of humor, and although her success in life?she repeatedly stresses the problems of being Italian, working class and a "girl"?may not be as unique as she seems to think, her clarity of insight and expression makes this an impressive achievement.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.

A biographer and literary critic's memoir of growing up in Hoboken, N.J., in a claustrophobic Italian-American family. DeSalvo (English/Hunter College; Conceived with Malice, 1994, etc.) was the first member of her working-class family to graduate from college. She escaped a stultifying home life--depressed and agoraphobic mother, belligerent and rigid father--through books, movies, study, and boys, boys, boys. She became a Virginia Woolf scholar, writing in her controversial 1989 study about the impact of childhood sexual abuse on Woolf's work. The effort to come to grips with the lingering mental strain caused by her mother's death, her sister's suicide, her memory of childhood traumas of her own--plus the intense, consuming life of an academic writer- -eventually compelled her to write about her own life in an effort to ``to give it some shape, some order.'' The result is an extremely readable book--if not necessarily a lovable one. DeSalvo's prose is plain; her tone often cool. We gain insight into her life and her mother's life--but not her dead sister's. New Jersey of the 1950s is vividly evoked, but DeSalvo's present situation as teacher, wife, and mother is less vivid. Among the book's best elements: a list of her mother's punitive and pathetic attempts at cooking--from liver, heart, and snails to head cheese, eels, and octupus. Vertigo's main failing is a lack of continuity; there is a grab-bag feeling to some of the reminiscences, and sometimes topics are misleadingly highlighted--a chapter called ``Anorexia,'' for example, is not about the anorexia of the author or anyone close to her, but rather about anorexia in general, and the effect is that of DeSalvo's trying to touch all possible feminist bases. Strangely cool, ultimately more successful as cultural history than psychological memoir, DeSalvo's book is nevertheless gripping in its parade of detail and profusion of stories about how ``a working-class Italian girl became a critic and writer.'' (Author tour) -- Copyright ©1996, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

Growing up Italian American in the 1950s and observing the women around her, DeSalvo became keenly aware of the severely limited opportunities available to women generally. Determined not to live a life like her mother's, filled with frustration, depression, and fear, she turned to literature and education for solace and direction. This memoir traces DeSalvo's struggle to become a woman independent in her own right and eventually a professor at Hunter College and author of the biographical study Virginia Woolf: The Impact of Childhood Sexual Abuse on her Life and Work (LJ 2/1/90), among other books. DiSalvo conveys her experiences with wit, style, and creativity yet permits the pathos of her life to surface occasionally, for example when she describes her attempts to deal with her mother's death and her sister's suicide. Writing and research provide the focus and stability in her life, relieving an ever-hovering tendency toward depression and illness. Her story will inspire all women faced with making choices in today's dizzying atmosphere.?Nancy Ives, SUNY at Geneseo
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Edition details

• Publisher: Dutton Adult
• Publication date: 1996
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0525939083
• ISBN 13: 9780525939085
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 288