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What does a mother do when her teenaged daughter is spinning out of control and nothing is bringing her back? Here is a searingly honest memoir of motherhood and a testament to the power of love and family.
When Adair Lara’s daughter Morgan turned thirteen, she was transformed, seemingly overnight, from a sweet, loving child into an angry, secretive teenager who would neither listen nor be disciplined. The author, her youngest son, Patrick, her ex-husband, Jim, and her new husband, Bill, all stepped on a five-year roller-coaster ride in which Morgan incarnated the chaos principle in torn jeans and dyed hair. Drinking, drugging, disappearing, suspicious companions, failing and cheating at school, joy riding in a stolen car–there was no variety of adolescent acting out that she didn’t indulge in. For Adair Lara it became an endless sojourn at the end of her rope, a trial immensely complicated by the reappearance in her life of her aging father, a man who had abandoned his wife and seven children decades earlier. Inevitably, Morgan’s misbehavior revives memories of her own headstrong adolescence, while her father’s presence makes agonizingly real for her the consequences of giving up. Paradoxically, he also becomes the source of her best advice.
Hold Me Close, Let Me Go is an emotionally charged, often brutally honest memoir that all parents (and anyone who was ever a teenager) will experience shocks of recognition from while reading. It imparts invaluable lessons about holding loved ones close through the roughest passages and about the power of family to overcome the most grievous obstacles. Adair Lara is a clear-eyed and eloquent witness to the complex costs and rewards of motherhood, and her book will redefine for readers their idea of what being “a good enough mother” really means.
When Adair Lara’s daughter Morgan turned thirteen, she was transformed, seemingly overnight, from a sweet, loving child into an angry, secretive teenager who would neither listen nor be disciplined. The author, her youngest son, Patrick, her ex-husband, Jim, and her new husband, Bill, all stepped on a five-year roller-coaster ride in which Morgan incarnated the chaos principle in torn jeans and dyed hair. Drinking, drugging, disappearing, suspicious companions, failing and cheating at school, joy riding in a stolen car–there was no variety of adolescent acting out that she didn’t indulge in. For Adair Lara it became an endless sojourn at the end of her rope, a trial immensely complicated by the reappearance in her life of her aging father, a man who had abandoned his wife and seven children decades earlier. Inevitably, Morgan’s misbehavior revives memories of her own headstrong adolescence, while her father’s presence makes agonizingly real for her the consequences of giving up. Paradoxically, he also becomes the source of her best advice.
Hold Me Close, Let Me Go is an emotionally charged, often brutally honest memoir that all parents (and anyone who was ever a teenager) will experience shocks of recognition from while reading. It imparts invaluable lessons about holding loved ones close through the roughest passages and about the power of family to overcome the most grievous obstacles. Adair Lara is a clear-eyed and eloquent witness to the complex costs and rewards of motherhood, and her book will redefine for readers their idea of what being “a good enough mother” really means.
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From the Back Cover:
“An honest, moving account of family life gone haywire.” –Kirkus Reviews
“Adair Lara has transcended the genre of self to achieve selflessness. Her story of abiding love and pure anguish is a must-readÉand for any parent, Lara’s book will be a beacon.” –Jacquelyn Mitchard, author of The Deep End of the Ocean
“Lara’s memoir is in equal parts disturbing and absorbing, primarily because of [her] ability to acknowledge--and ultimately accept responsibility for--her initial eagerness to deny that her daughter’s life was going awry...Her yarn is told from the heart” –New York Newsday
About the Author:
“Adair Lara has transcended the genre of self to achieve selflessness. Her story of abiding love and pure anguish is a must-readÉand for any parent, Lara’s book will be a beacon.” –Jacquelyn Mitchard, author of The Deep End of the Ocean
“Lara’s memoir is in equal parts disturbing and absorbing, primarily because of [her] ability to acknowledge--and ultimately accept responsibility for--her initial eagerness to deny that her daughter’s life was going awry...Her yarn is told from the heart” –New York Newsday
Adair Lara is an award-winning newspaper columnist whose column appears twice weekly in the San Francisco Chronicle. She is the author of five books, including Welcome to Earth, Mom; Slowing Down in a Speeded-Up World;and her latest, The Best of Adair Lara. Her articles and essays have appeared in Redbook, Ladies’ Home Journal, Parenting, Good Housekeeping, Reader’s Digest and other national publications. She lives in San Francisco; her daughter Morgan has just graduated from the University of California at Santa Cruz.
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- PublisherBroadway
- Publication date2001
- ISBN 10 0767905075
- ISBN 13 9780767905077
- BindingHardcover
- Number of pages288
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