Places in the Bone: A Memoir

In a series of unflinching vignettes laced with heartbreak and often with humor, Places in the Bone gives an unforgettable account of loss and survival, childhood secrets banished from memory, and the power of language to retrieve the missing parts of oneself and one’s past. Woven together with unmistakable lyricism, Carol Dine’s narrative moves back and forth in time and place—from the childhood bedroom that fills her with fear, to a hospital room after her surgery for breast cancer, to an adobe hut in a New Mexico artists’ colony where she escapes and finds her voice.

This voice, it turns out, is a chorus—a harmony of cries, both anguished and triumphant. Among them we hear a young girl speak about the abuse by her father; we hear the tormented reflections of a mother who, for several years after a divorce, loses contact with her young son; and we hear the testimony of a cancer survivor. Through it all, we feel the determination, courage, and creativity of a woman who has spent more than two decades confronting her past, her body, and her identity. Despite her struggles, Dine finds positive influences in her life, including her mentor, Anne Sexton, who recognizes the fire in her words, and Stanley Kunitz, whose indomitable spirit provides enduring inspiration.  

More than a story of personal loss, the memoir moves us with its humanity, its unnerving wit, and its defiant faith. As the fragments come together, we experience Dine’s joy in living and her reconciliation with the past that allow her to renew bonds with her son, her sister, and her mother. In page after page, we witness the power of art to refigure a body, to transform suffering, and ultimately, to redeem.  

Poet Dine (Naming the Sky) traces her history as an abused child and a cancer survivor in this intense but uneven memoir. Writing in journal form, Dine reveals the emotional and physical scars caused by her father's abuse when she was a young child in the 1950s. The weight of his beatings, known to her sister and mother yet not acknowledged by either of them, follows Dine into adulthood as she relinquishes custody of her own child for fear of continuing the cycle of violence. Her struggles persist as she is diagnosed with breast cancer, which, after a mastectomy and period of remission, spreads, increasing Dine's fear as she recalls her dying aunt's warning about her family's history with cancer, telling Dine that "this is how the girls in our family end up." Despite abusive boyfriends, extensive operations and treatments for her cancer, and a strained relationship with her son, Dine pursues her writing career, from studying with Anne Sexton to fellowships at Yaddo and the MacDowell Colony. While her message of strength and survival is clear, Dine's use of flashbacks fails as a narrative thread by creating confusion instead of clarity, and weakens an otherwise powerful chronicle. (Oct.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.