Saturday Biography Review--Favorite Wife

Title: Favorite Wife: Escape from Polygamy

Author: Susan Ray Schmidt

The Story and Its Author:

Susan Ray Schmidt’s compelling memoir relates her life growing up in a fundamentalist Mormon community in Mexico where the practice of polygamy was practiced. She was born in October of 1953 in Utah to Vernon and Mathel Ray.

When she was eight, the family moved to Mexico to join a colony of polygamists started by the LaBaron brothers (Alma, Joel, Verlan and Ervil) called Colonia LaBaron. Shortly after the move Vernon took a second wife,  a Mexican named Maria, and began a second family with her.

Shortly before her 15th birthday she had a dream that she thought told her that she was to marry Verlan Labaron who was the brother of the prophet Joel. Soon after that Verlan started courting Susan. Soon after her 15^th birthday, she became his sixth wife and went to live with several of his wives and children in the Baja part of Mexico. Her memoir recounts the pain and challenges of sharing a husband with her “sister-wives,” and the circumstances leading up to her divorces and departure from the polygamous lifestyle.

Recommendation: ****

This is such a compelling read. Don’t pick it up until you have the time to enjoy it and definitely not when you’re sleep-deprived...you'll be reading late at night. Susan’s account underlines the power that oppressive authority can wield over those who trust and the strength of someone who has the ability to stand up to it.

I'm Victoria Ceretto-Slotto (http://liv2write2day.wordpress.com/) and I'm happy to share this review with you today.

Saturday Biography Review: "Loving Frank"

Title: “Loving Frank: a Novel”

Author: Nancy Horan

About the Author:  The author of “Loving Frank,” Nancy Horan, is a former journalist who once lived in Oak Park, Illinois—the hotbed of Frank Lloyd Wright’s early architectural work and his home. She now lives on Puget Sound. While the story itself unfolds as fiction, it is based on historical research and the lives of actual associates of Frank Lloyd Wright.

Story Summary: Frank Lloyd Wright, an American architect who practiced his art for 70 years in the 20^th Century, has wielded enormous influence in the world of design. His philosophy was to incorporate buildings as a part of, rather than in opposition to, the natural landscape. He established centers for learning for architectural students in Wisconsin and Arizona.

His personal life, however, was rift with tragedy and strife. This historical/biographical novel focuses on his relationship with Mamah Borthwick Cheney, his mistress—a relationship that destroyed both of their marriages and defied all the mores of the early 20^th Century. A relationship that terminated in her murder and the destruction of the original Taliesin, his home and center for architectural students.

Recommendation: ****

The story is a compelling read that, at the same time, supplies the reader with a wealth of information about 20^th Century architecture, Frank Lloyd Wright and his work. For those who have interest in a more detailed account of his work, I suggest “The Fellowship: The Untold Story of Frank Lloyd Wright and the Taliesin Fellowship.”

Reviewed by Victoria Ceretto-Slotto http://liv2write2day.wordpress.com/

Taliesin East

Saturday Biography--Running with Scissors

Title: Running with Scissors: A Memoir

Author: Augusten Burroughs

About the Author:  Burroughs was born Christopher Robison in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, the younger of two sons to poet Margaret Robison and John G. Robison, former head of the philosophy department at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. He is the younger brother of fellow memoirist John Elder Robison. He was raised in Massachusetts, including the towns of Shutesbury, Amherst and Northampton. His parents divorced on July 29, 1978, when Burroughs was twelve years old, and he was adopted by his mother's psychiatrist who resided in the Northampton area.

Burroughs dropped out of school after the sixth grade and obtained a GED at age 17. He chose his name at age 18, and legally changed it in Boston.^[1] He later enrolled at Holyoke Community College in Holyoke, Massachusetts as a pre-med student, dropping out before the end of the first semester. He decided to settle in New York City and worked for a Manhattan-based advertising company. In 1996, he sought treatment for alcoholism at a rehabilitation center in Minnesota before returning to Manhattan.
His books are published by St. Martin's Press and Picador. Some of his childhood experiences were chronicled in Running with Scissors (2002), which was later developed into a film.
(From Wikipedia)

Story Summary: A disturbing memoir of a young boy who was shuttled off to live with his mother’s psychiatrist, Running with Scissors, is a penultimate experience of dysfunctional family systems. Controversy surrounds the author’s account of his childhood and teen years which were marked with uncertainty, a mentally ill mother, a bitter divorce that included alienation from his father, and life in the bizarre home of his mother’s psychiatrist.

The reader will be amazed at the boy’s ability to survive the circumstances of his life which included his dropping out of school after 6^th grade, his suffering sexual abuse at the hands of a pedophile and a psychiatrist-mediated fake suicide attempt in order to excuse him from attending school.

Although the names of his adoptive family and his own family were changed in the telling, Burroughs is now facing a lawsuit by the children of the psychiatrist who claim that his account grossly misrepresents the family.

Regardless of the controversy, Burrough’s poet-mother and his own attachment to journaling helped him succeed in a crafting a brilliantly-told story that is loaded with humor. This memoir has had a long run on the NYT’s best sellers list.

Recommendation: **** for the quality of the writing, but I caution that this story is more than a little disturbing. Graphic sexual content calls for discernment.