Reviews for Searching for Mercy Street

The average rating for Searching for Mercy Street based on 2 reviews is 4 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2010-07-12 00:00:00 Patrick Roetzer I really loved this. I came to it wanting to know more about Anne Sexton, but ended up finding myself enamoured with Linda herself (Anne'a daughter and the author of this book). I did indeed find out more about Anne Sexton - and when I finished the book, I feel like I now understand her life, and her more fully (having read Middlebrook's biography also). Linda Gray Sexton is a fabulous writer, I didn't put the book down. I started it, unsure of how I'd feel, and what'd I'd think about Linda - wondering whether she was using her mother's name just to get some attention. I finished the book not feeling this way at all. Linda comes across as being an extremely well-grounded, intelligent person, something I find to be extraordinary considering her childhood. Sure, she's struggled with depression and grief, but she is in no way a trainwreck. She is really likable, consider me smitten. She writes of her childhood, of her seperations when she was sent to various relatives houses. She writes of her parent's relationship from her perspective (the horrifying domestic abuse and violent fights that she was witness to), she also talks of the incest that occurred which was quite troubling to read (so beware if you feel you may be triggered by this) but also she writes of better aspects of her childhood and her relationship with her mother - Christmastime, her bond with Anne over poetry in her teen years. Later, she writes of her growing distance between her and her mother, shortly before Anne's suicide. And she also writes of the years following, sorting out her mother's writing, her deepening bond with her father, having her own two sons and her own battles with depression, which she writes about admirably - not only because of her determination to be a good mother, but because of her honesty, and her beautiful way with words. Here, two excerpts of her writing of depression and it's affect on her life, and Anne's. "Previously depression had meant a gloom to me - a gloom, nearly visual, that descended before my eyes and made it difficult to think or see clearly. I became a gray person. But this felt different: this time my depression had developed into a physical pain. I found myself stooping as it gnawed at my stomach. Like a tumor, it went with me wherever I went, for whatever I was doing. It spread ts tentacles wide, and took deep root." & "My mother died of depression. Untreatable, increasing depression. Why, when we refer to depression, do we think of it in the main as a state characterized by numbness and low spirits rather than intense suffering. Why, in fact, is the word pain rarely used when describing depression. The dictionary uses synonyms such as melancholy, depsondency, and sadness." The only thing I did dislike was her apparent a disgust with lesbianism that comes up several times, subtly, throughout the book - which bemused me, until I realised that it may be a somewhat unconscious reaction to the molestation by her mother. This is a woman whose life was shaped so massively by her mother, her childhood, her teen years, her early twenties - her mother was dependant on her and so intrusive on Linda's life. Even after her suicide, she continues to be a part of Linda's life as LInda is in charge of Anne's literary work. And she's just as much of a damaging force after death, as she was in life. Linda had to plough through letters, read about her mother's extramarital affairs, read transcriptions of her therapy sessions. And then, she has to deal with the tapes of Anne's sessions with Dr Orne, which she decides to release to Middlebrook for her biography. Something I'm grateful of, as I too believe that Anne would have wanted the world to know every little gritty detail about herself. Here, she writes of how her mother was/is still a major part of her life, even after death, when a fan of Anne's calls Linda at her home. "She wanted nothing but to chat. The episode jolted me from the present back into the nightmare slide of childhood when everything felt so out of control: who knew when or how the eerily skewed balance of mental illness would intrude into my world, break open my privacy, cause me anxiety - even it if was delivered from the voice of a near stranger over the telephone." Can you even begin to imagine what this woman's life has been like? It was interesting too, to read - that Linda had wanted a biographer to focus on Anne's work, rather than one that had a sensational bent. When I read Middlebrook's biography, I found it to be heavily focused on Anne's work and in my review of it, mention that, as well as that I felt that Middlebrook somewhat disapproved of Anne's lifestyle, and that she held a certain disdain towards her - something which Linda does indeed prove to be true in this memoir (she mentions a coversation that they both have in which these things are touched on). Linda provides such a deeply personal view into both Anne's and her own life, writing with emotion that often touched me, here's a paragraph that gives a good example of, well, everything; Linda's beautiful writing style, her complex relationship with her mother, an insight into her as a person and Anne herself: "She took that audience into her heart with frankness, humour and spontaneity. I watched the adulation and realized that the audience had become her family now - they were the ones who loved her without reservation. My friends, fellow students, teachers - all had expressions of awe on their faces. Rapture. And I was jealous, unspeakably jealous. In that moment I hated her and her power absolutely. In that moment I loved her and her power absolutely. She stood before us, her voice pure thunder." Considering how horrid Anne could be a lot of the time, I was surprised by the amount of compassion that Linda has for her. But don't get me wrong, she doesn't condone her behaviour, but is instead, frank and honest - and forgiving. I hope that Linda found writing this book to be as cathartic as she had hoped. It was an incredible read.

Review # 2 was written on 2019-12-30 00:00:00 Nanda Kumar Beautifully written memoir showcasing Linda Sexton's writing talent, perhaps a gift from her mother, the poet Anne Sexton. Linda also inherited her mother's literary estate and had to deal with all of her papers at the end of her life even inexplicably deciding to release her therapy records to her biographer. She called this a "small decision" Anne went into her therapy determined to work on her unconscious impulses and behaviors and suicidal thoughts. This was all understood to be absolutely confidential, inconceivable that it would have been violated. I find it hard to believe that Anne would have wanted her daughter to have known that she ever said that she hated her. Therapy's the place where you can say those forbidden kind of things. So it's the principle that she violated in releasing it but the sole responsibility lies with Dr. Orne, Anne's psychiatrist who violated her rights. Linda insists that because Anne shared so much of herself that she would not have minded and perhaps Linda does know how her mom would feel but still Anne didn't get a say in this. And besides she shared taboo information in her poetry, yes but she turned it into Art and she used metaphor mostly. Anne went into psychotherapy to dig things up, to work with the unconscious. She was brave and honest in this work that never cured her but only seemed to make her worse. Anne even commented in those records to Orne: "What's the difference if I write poems or talk to you? It's the same thing. The last line of a poem is an insight." Anne's work was her poetry which she defended and would not give up at the expense of better mental health. Linda gave us the viewpoint of the daughter and what she endured because of Anne's neglect and abuse, even sexual abuse which is difficult to read. It could have been less graphic for my tastes but Anne was exhibitionistic and Linda must have absorbed that trait from her. In Anne's final suicide I feel that there was a self-punishment, a self-hatred which also comes out in her poetry. She did love her daughter and her letters to Linda were beautiful and touching and heartfelt and real. Anne was real, she had no pretense about her. She claimed she lived her life "to the hilt" despite it all. She died with her boots on, so to speak. When she killed herself she sat in the front seat of her car, Vodka in hand, garage door closed & started the ignition. I wonder if she listened to music? I wonder what her last thoughts were. "and at the last moment when death opens the back door you'll put on your carpet slippers and stride out." -"Courage," 1974