A Family Album: Living with Schizophrenia
Why You Want It:
"Quiet tone, spare language, and compelling imagery confirm the mysterious capacity of poetry to push us toward a clarity that can move our lives forward." —Jeffrey Hammond, Distinguished Professor, St. Mary's College
"This struggle to survive and mature out of the cauldron of immigrant nuclear family tension will inspire anyone who has suffered and surmounted a difficult early family life." —Deborah L. Radzwill, PsyD, Licensed Psychologist
"The poems speak of grief and healing, of sadness and epiphany, in connection with and disconnection from an extended family that leaves him both broken and whole." —Alice Rogoff, Editor, Haight-Ashbury Literary Journal
How You Get it: Order directly from the author and get the book signed and dated with any dedication you want. Please enclose this request in the Signed Copy Desired section of your PayPal Transaction.
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What It's About: A Family Album tells in poetry tales of the joys and sorrows of the author's second generation Jewish childhood with perfectionist parents and a schizophrenic younger sister. Enlivened by sharp humor, the poems paint rich verbal portraits of eccentric aunts and uncles, and the struggles and small triumphs of a family under siege. Includes 2 CDs of the author (a trained actor) reading the poems. Paperback, 6x9 in, 36 poems, 23 interior family photos and graphic designs, 144 total pages total. © 2006.
What's Inside:
Hear, O Israel
Out in the fog, voices
too soft to comprehend
argue mildly; feelings too mixed
to untangle fly crisscross
like toy arrows.
Car doors slam, the hoarse bark
of a starter motor becomes more shrill
until its parent engine roars
to life and carries this configuration
out of sound and sight.
Alone again in my study,
myself and the mist to listen to,
I long to be in that car and hear
all that rode away:
who did wrong, who right,
what squabble lost or won,
who rewarded, who punished—
all those sodden dramas
that make up family life,
sour as old sweat,
snug as a bedbug.
That was a time when loneliness
always had company and boredom
was brightened by the next scheme.
No need to find meaning then,
to make a life of my own,
for we were tied together as one
and that was our meaning thus far:
to be carried by the family car
in the labyrinth of family roads
as long as needed to keep us there.
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