Fall Down Seven Times, Get Up Eight: Tales of Triumph Over the Past

As a practicing psychotherapist, Rubin (World of Pain) has been struck by the ability of some people to overcome troubled beginnings and become functional adults. In the stories collected here, which include the author's, there is a diversity of problems, personalities and reactions: child abuse, the battered wife, emotional and physical rejection, even a priest's struggle with feelings of isolation, all springing from early dysfunctional family settings. Yet the theme of these triumphant tales is that such families are best left behind, metaphorically and physically, and as the individuals in these searing narratives demonstrate, mentors and surrogates along the way have been their salvation. Since these lives run counter to psychological expectations that past history determines the future, new light is cast upon those who refuse to be victims. (Mar.)