The Ambivalent Memoirist: Obsessions Digressions Epiphanies

Hurtes offers up a scathingly honest memoir full of compassion and wit that infuses ordinary events with intimacy and intensity. A divorce and overbearing parents complicate Hurtes's attempts to reinvent herself in Brooklyn Heights. Teaching college English courses and preparing her first essay collection, she must address her own pain and doubts, as well as her parents' experiences during the Holocaust. Hurtes makes her raw, intimate struggles relevant to anyone who has loved, lost, and grappled with indecision and missed chances. Writing as art and psychological salvation is at the heart of this book, taking "readers deep below the surface" of words toward personal vindication.