Between You & Me: Confessions of a Comma Queen
Mary Norris, 2015
W.W. Norton & Co.
240 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780393352146
Summary
The most irreverent and helpful book on language since the #1 New York Times bestseller Eats, Shoots & Leaves.
Mary Norris has spent more than three decades in The New Yorker's copy department, maintaining its celebrated high standards. Now she brings her vast experience, good cheer, and finely sharpened pencils to help the rest of us in a boisterous language book as full of life as it is of practical advice.
Between You & Me features Norris's laugh-out-loud descriptions of some of the most common and vexing problems in spelling, punctuation, and usage—comma faults, danglers, "who" vs. "whom," "that" vs. "which," compound words, gender-neutral language—and her clear explanations of how to handle them.
Down-to-earth and always open-minded, she draws on examples from Charles Dickens, Emily Dickinson, Henry James, and the Lord's Prayer, as well as from The Honeymooners, The Simpsons, David Foster Wallace, and Gillian Flynn. She takes us to see a copy of Noah Webster's groundbreaking Blue-Back Speller, on a quest to find out who put the hyphen in Moby-Dick, on a pilgrimage to the world's only pencil-sharpener museum, and inside the hallowed halls of The New Yorker and her work with such celebrated writers as Pauline Kael, Philip Roth, and George Saunders.
Readers—and writers—will find in Norris neither a scold nor a softie but a wise and witty new friend in love with language and alive to the glories of its use in America, even in the age of autocorrect and spell-check. As Norris writes, "The dictionary is a wonderful thing, but you can't let it push you around." (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth— February 7, 1952
• Raised—Cleveland, Ohio, USA
• Education—B.A., Rutgers University; M.A., University of Vermont
• Currently—lives in New York, New York
Mary Norris was raised in Cleveland, Ohio. She graduated from Rutgers University in 1974. She earned a Masters in English from the University of Vermont.
Norris joined the editorial staff at The New Yorker in 1978. She has been a query proofreader at the magazine since 1993, as well as a contributor to the magazine's "The Talk of the Town" column and newyorker.com.
Her first book, Between You and Me: Confessions of a Comma Queen was published in 2015. (From Wikipedia. Retrieved 11/17/2015.)
Book Reviews
Ms. Norris, who has a dirty laugh that evokes late nights and Scotch, is…like the worldly aunt who pulls you aside at Thanksgiving and whispers that it is all right to occasionally flout the rules.
Sarah Lyall - New York Times
Copy editors are a peculiar species…But those at The New Yorker are something else entirely…A regular reader might be forgiven for wondering, "Are these people nuts?" In Mary Norris's Between You & Me: Confessions of a Comma Queen, we have our answer: They most certainly are. And their obsessions, typographical and otherwise, make hilarious reading…Despite the extreme grammar, this book charmed my socks off…Norris is a master storyteller and serves up plenty of inside stuff.
Patricia T. O'Conner - New York Times Book Review
Brims with wit, personality—and commas.... Norris' enthusiasm is infectious. She's as passionate about sharp pencils as she is about sharp writing.... Delightful.
Heller McAlpin - NPR Books
[P]ure porn for word nerds.
Allan Fallow - Washington Post
“Destined to become an instant classic…. It’s hard to imagine the reader who would not enjoy spending time with Norris.
Christian Science Monitor
Mary Norris has an enthusiasm for the proper use of language that’s contagious. Her memoir is so engaging, in fact, that it’s easy to forget you’re learning things.
People
[A] delightful discourse on the most common grammar, punctuation, and usage challenges faced by writers of all stripes. Not surprisingly, Norris writes well—with wit, sass, and smarts—and the book is part memoir, part manual.... [A]fter reading this book, [readers will] think more about how and what they write.
Publishers Weekly
(Starred review.) Part memoir and part writing guide, Norris's thoughtful and humorous narrative provides an irreverent account of her days as a New Yorker comma queen as well as an insightful look into the history of the English language. —Gricel Dominguez, Florida International Univ. Lib.
Library Journal
[A] funny and entertaining new book about language and life… While Norris may have a job as a “comma queen,” readers of Between You & Me will find that “prose goddess” is perhaps a more apt description of this delightful writer.
BookPage
(Starred review.) Norris delivers a host of unforgettable anecdotes.... In countless laugh-out-loud passages, Norris displays her admirable flexibility in bending rules when necessary. She even makes her serious quest to uncover the reason for the hyphen in the title of the classic novel Moby-Dick downright hilarious. A funny book for any serious reader.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
Use our LitLovers Book Club Resources; they can help with discussions for any book:
• How to Discuss a Book (helpful discussion tips)
• Generic Discussion Questions—Fiction and Nonfiction
• Read-Think-Talk (a guided reading chart)
Also, consider these LitLovers talking points to help start a discussion for Between You & Me:
1. How important is proper grammar, usage, and punctuation? Given today's shortened and very efficient methods for communicating (starting way back with the telegraph and Morse Code), why the emphasis on the aforementioned? Does it utlimately matter?
2. When did you last study the mechanics of writing (grammar, punctuation, et al), and how much had you forgotten until you read Between You & Me? Do you find it all difficult to understand—in other words, is it nonsensical to you? Or is there a basic logic underlying our grammatical rules?
3. Follow-up to Question 3: Explain the apostrophe!
4. Point out where Mary Norris uses humor to drive a point home. What, in particular, made you laugh?
5. Over all, how imprortant are grammatical rules, and when can you break those rules? Can following the rules "to a T" risk erasing the personality of the writer? Consider the letter that Jacqueline Kennedy wrote to Richard Nixon after JFK's husband's death. Was Norris's correction as personal...or powerful as the original?
6. What have you learned from reading Between You & Me? Have you come away with a better understanding of grammar and punctution? Or is all still a mystery to you?
(We'll add specific questions if and when they're made available by the publisher.)
Furiously Happy: A Funny Book About Horrible Things
Jenny Lawson, 2015
Flatiron Books
352 pp.
ISBN-13: 9781250077004
Summary
Jenny Lawson explores her lifelong battle with mental illness. A hysterical, ridiculous book about crippling depression and anxiety? That sounds like a terrible idea.
But terrible ideas are what Jenny does best.
As Jenny says
Some people might think that being "furiously happy" is just an excuse to be stupid and irresponsible and invite a herd of kangaroos over to your house without telling your husband first because you suspect he would say no since he's never particularly liked kangaroos.
And that would be ridiculous because no one would invite a herd of kangaroos into their house. Two is the limit. I speak from personal experience. My husband says that none is the new limit. I say he should have been clearer about that before I rented all those kangaroos.
Most of my favorite people are dangerously fucked-up but you'd never guess because we've learned to bare it so honestly that it becomes the new normal. Like John Hughes wrote in The Breakfast Club, "We're all pretty bizarre. Some of us are just better at hiding it." Except go back and cross out the word "hiding."
Furiously Happy is about "taking those moments when things are fine and making them amazing, because those moments are what make us who we are, and they're the same moments we take into battle with us when our brains declare war on our very existence. It's the difference between "surviving life" and "living life."
It's the difference between "taking a shower" and "teaching your monkey butler how to shampoo your hair." It's the difference between being "sane" and being "furiously happy."
Lawson is beloved around the world for her inimitable humor and honesty, and in Furiously Happy, she is at her snort-inducing funniest. This is a book about embracing everything that makes us who we are - the beautiful and the flawed—and then using it to find joy in fantastic and outrageous ways.
Because as Jenny's mom says, "Maybe 'crazy' isn't so bad after all." Sometimes crazy is just right. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—1973
• Where—Wall, Texas, USA
• Education—B.A., Angelo State University
• Currently—lives in Texas Hill Country
Jennifer Lawson is an American journalist and blogger from Wall, Texas. She is a graduate of Angelo State University. She is the author of The Bloggess and Ill Advised blogs, co-author of Good Mom/Bad Mom on the Houston Chronicle and a columnist for SexIs magazine.
Lawson is best known for her irreverent writing style. She also used to write an advice column named "Ask The Bloggess" for The Personal News Network (PNN.com) until she quit because they stopped paying her. She suffers from rheumatoid arthritis, OCD, depression and an anxiety disorder.
She was recognized by the Nielsen ratings as one of the Top 50 Most Powerful Mom Bloggers and Forbes listed thebloggess.com as one of their Top 100 Websites for Women. She was a finalist in the 2010 Weblog awards for Best Writing and Most Humorous Writer, and a finalist in the 2011 Weblog awards for Best Writing, Most Humorous Writer and Weblog of the Year.
In 2011 The Huffington Post named Lawson the "Greatest Person of the Day" for her work in raising money for struggling families in December 2010. She was also interviewed on CBC News Network's Connect with Mark Kelley during the fundraising campaign.
Lawson's autobiography, Let's Pretend This Never Happened, was released on April 17, 2012, and by May 6th, reached #1 on the New York Times bestseller list. She published her second book, Furiously Happy: A Funny Book About Horrible Things, in 2015. (Adapted from Wikipedia.)
Book Reviews
Lawson's self-deprecating humor is not only gaspingly funny and wonderfully inappropriate; it allows her to speak...in a real and raw way.
Oprah Magazine
[Lawson] writes with a rambling irreverence that makes you wish she were your best friend.
Entertainment Weekly
Take one part David Sedaris and two parts Chelsea Handler and you'll have some inkling of the cockeyed humor of Jenny Lawson...[She] flaunts the sort of fearless comedic chops that will make you spurt Diet Coke through your nose.
Parade
Though mostly comedic, the text also addresses such serious issues as self-injury and why mental illness is misunderstood. Lawson insightfully explores the ways in which dark moments serve to make the lighter times all the brighter.
Publishers Weekly
(Starred review.) Lawson returns with another autobiographical work, this one focused on her experiences living with mental illness.... Vedict: The stigma surrounding mental illness can only be lifted if people affected are willing to talk about their experiences and everyone else is willing to listen. This book is a profane, hilarious, touching, and essential part of that conversation. —Stephanie Klose
Library Journal
Rather than hiding the facts, [Lawson] openly divulges, in a darkly humorous way, how she copes with rheumatoid arthritis, depression, panic attacks, anxiety.... She does a solid job exposing the hidden nature of mental illness.... Her amusing essays open up a not-so-funny topic: mental illness in its many guises.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
Use our LitLovers Book Club Resources; they can help with discussions for any book:
• How to Discuss a Book (helpful discussion tips)
• Generic Discussion Questions—Fiction and Nonfiction
• Read-Think-Talk (a guided reading chart)
Also, consider these LitLovers talking points to help start a discussion for Furiously Happy:
1. Jenny Lawson is open about her struggle with mental illness. Has this book altered your view of those who face mental issues or given you greater insight of their plight?
2. Cancer patients, Lawson tells us, are not blamed for their failure to respond to treatment, but the same cannot always be said for those who suffer from mental illness. Why is that?
3. Do you personally know people—friends or family members—who suffer from any of the illnesses that Jenny Lawson discusses? If so, how do they cope, and how do the people close to them, perhaps yourself included, deal with their illnesses?
4. Talk about the use of humor in Furiously Happy. How does it affect your reading of this book? Why might Lawson treat such a serious, often tragic, subject with laughter?
5. What is the significance of the title, "Furiously Happy"?
(Questions by LitLovers. Please feel free to use them, online or off, with attribution. Thanks.)
Becoming Nicole: The Transformation of an American Family
Amy Ellis Nutt, 2015
Random House
304 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780812995411
Summary
The inspiring true story of a transgender girl, her identical twin brother, and an ordinary American family’s extraordinary journey to understand, nurture, and celebrate the uniqueness in us all.
When Wayne and Kelly Maines adopted identical twin boys, they thought their lives were complete. But it wasn’t long before they noticed a marked difference between Jonas and his brother, Wyatt.
Jonas preferred sports and trucks and many of the things little boys were “supposed” to like; but Wyatt liked princess dolls and dress-up and playing Little Mermaid. By the time the twins were toddlers, confusion over Wyatt’s insistence that he was female began to tear the family apart.
In the years that followed, the Maineses came to question their long-held views on gender and identity, to accept and embrace Wyatt’s transition to Nicole, and to undergo an emotionally wrenching transformation of their own that would change all their lives forever.
Becoming Nicole chronicles a journey that could have destroyed a family but instead brought it closer together. It’s the story of...
- a mother whose instincts told her that her child needed love and acceptance, not ostracism and disapproval,
- a Republican, Air Force veteran father who overcame his deepest fears to become a vocal advocate for trans rights,
- a loving brother who bravely stuck up for his twin sister,
- a town forced to confront its prejudices, a school compelled to rewrite its rules, and...
- a courageous community of transgender activists determined to make their voices heard.
Ultimately, Becoming Nicole is the story of an extraordinary girl who fought for the right to be herself.
Granted wide-ranging access to personal diaries, home videos, clinical journals, legal documents, medical records, and the Maineses themselves, Amy Ellis Nutt spent almost four years reporting this immersive account of an American family confronting an issue that is at the center of today’s cultural debate.
Becoming Nicole will resonate with anyone who’s ever raised a child, felt at odds with society’s conventions and norms, or had to embrace life when it plays out unexpectedly. It’s a story of standing up for your beliefs and yourself—and it will inspire all of us to do the same. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—ca. 1956-57
• Where—N/A
• Education—B.A., Smith College; M.A., M.I.T. and Columbia University
• Awards—Pulitzer Prize
• Currently—lives in Washington, DC
Amy Ellis Nutt won the Pulitzer Prize in 2011 for her Newark Star Ledger feature series “The Wreck of the Lady Mary,” about the 2009 sinking of a fishing boat off the New Jersey coast. Currently, she is a health and science writer at the Washington Post.
She is also the author of three books: Becoming Nicole: The Transformation of an American Family (2015), Shadows Bright as Glass: The Remarkable Story of One Man's Journey from Brain Trauma to Artistic Triumph (2011), and the co-author with Frances E. Jensen, M.D. of the New York Times bestseller The Teenage Brain: A Neuroscientist's Survival Guide to Raising Adolescents and Young Adults (2015).
Nutt was a Nieman Fellow in Journalism at Harvard University, a Ferris Professor of Journalism at Princeton, and an instructor of journalism at the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism. She lives in Washington, D.C. (Adapted from the publisher.)
Book Reviews
Reading strictly for plot, Becoming Nicole is about a transgender girl who triumphed in a landmark discrimination case in 2014, successfully suing the Orono school district in Maine for barring her from using the girls' bathroom. But the real movement in this book happens internally, in the back caverns of each family member's heart and mind. Four ordinary and imperfect human beings had to reckon with an exceptional situation, and in so doing also became, in their own modest ways, exceptional…Ms. Nutt…skillfully recreates a story that started years before she arrived at the family's doorstep. (They seem to have given her full-saturation access.) She gets the structure and pacing just right…if you aren't moved by Becoming Nicole, I'd suggest there's a lump of dark matter where your heart should be.
Jennifer Senior - New York Times
[The author] generously traces the parameters of parental love…Children are never what one expects, and the trick is not to be disappointed—in fact, to be pleased—with who they are. This process of constantly recalibrating one's expectations is the central job of parenthood: a high-wire act in which one's own memories of childhood and the priorities and habits developed there come into direct conflict with who one's child actually is…Becoming Nicole iterates this idea, delving deep into the case of a single family with a transgender child and discovering in its particulars certain universal truths about the ways children arrive in one's life already themselves.
Lisa Miller - New York Times Book Review
A transgender girl’s coming-of-age saga, an exploration of the budding science of gender identity, a civil rights time capsule, a tear-jerking legal drama and, perhaps most of all, an education about what can happen when a child doesn’t turn out as his or her parents expected—and they’re forced to either shut their eyes and hearts or see everything differently.
Time
Nutt reports on medical opinion that gender is established physiologically within the brain and is a matter of heredity.... What is clear in this gripping account is the strength of the emotional bond within the family.... A timely, significant examination of the distinction between sexual affinity and sexual identity.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
Use our LitLovers Book Club Resources; they can help with discussions for any book:
• How to Discuss a Book (helpful discussion tips)
• Generic Discussion Questions—Fiction and Nonfiction
• Read-Think-Talk (a guided reading chart)
Consider these LitLovers talking points to help start a discussion for Becoming Nicole:
1. Discuss the differences between the twins, and when those differences began to emerge.
2. Talk about Wayne and Kelly Maines and the manner in which they dealt with Wyatt/Nicole's emerging transformation? How difficult is it for any parent to acknowledge a child's profound divergence from expectations? How would you have reacted if you had been in Wayne and Kelly's situation?
3. What about Jonas? Does he receive equal treatment from his parents, or has so much attention revolved around his sibling that he remains somewhat on the sidelines?
4. The author writes of transgender people:
If there is an inner distress...it arises from knowing exactly who they are, but at the same time being locked into the wrong body.... The dysfunction arises not from their own confusion, but from being made to feel like freaks or gender misfits.
What is your reaction to transgendered individuals? Has this book altered the way in which you understand their situation? Are you more, or less, sympathetic? Why?
5. What, if any, legitimate protections and/or rights should transgendered individuals expect from society?
(Questions by LitLovers. Please feel free to use them, online or off, with attribution. Thanks.)
Rosemary: The Hidden Kennedy Daughter
Kate Clifford Larson, 2015
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
320 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780547250250
Summary
They were the most prominent American family of the twentieth century. The daughter they secreted away made all the difference.
Joe and Rose Kennedy’s strikingly beautiful daughter Rosemary attended exclusive schools, was presented as a debutante to the Queen of England, and traveled the world with her high-spirited sisters. And yet, Rosemary was intellectually disabled—a secret fiercely guarded by her powerful and glamorous family.
Major new sources—Rose Kennedy’s diaries and correspondence, school and doctors' letters, and exclusive family interviews—bring Rosemary alive as a girl adored but left far behind by her competitive siblings.
Kate Larson reveals both the sensitive care Rose and Joe gave to Rosemary and then—as the family’s standing reached an apex—the often desperate and duplicitous arrangements the Kennedys made to keep her away from home as she became increasingly intractable in her early twenties. Finally, Larson illuminates Joe’s decision to have Rosemary lobotomized at age twenty-three, and the family's complicity in keeping the secret.
Rosemary delivers a profoundly moving coda: JFK visited Rosemary for the first time while campaigning in the Midwest; she had been living isolated in a Wisconsin institution for nearly twenty years. Only then did the siblings understand what had happened to Rosemary and bring her home for loving family visits. It was a reckoning that inspired them to direct attention to the plight of the disabled, transforming the lives of millions. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—ca. 1958-59
• Where—N/A
• Education—B.A., M.A., Simmons College; M.B.A., University of New Hampshire; Ph.D.,
Northeastern University
• Honors—(see below)
• Currently—lives in Winchester, Massachusetts
Kate Clifford Larson is an American author, historian, and consultant, most well known as a Harriet Tubman scholar. Her 2003 biography Harriet Tubman, Bound for the Promised Land was one of the first non-juvenile Tubman biographies published in six decades. She lives in Winchester, Massachusetts.
Education
Larson earned both her B.A. and M.A. from Simmons College and, later, an M.B.A. from Northeastern University. She went on to receive her Ph.D. in history at the University of New Hampshire.
Harriet Tubman
When Larson published Harriet Tubman: Bound for the Promised Land in 2003, two other non-juvenile biographies of Tubman were also published: Harriet Tubman: The Life and the Life Stories by Jean M. Humez, and Harriet Tubman: The Road to Freedom by Catherine Clinton (see LitLovers Review).
Dr. Larson is the consultant for the Harriet Tubman Special Resource Study of the National Park Service. She serves on the advisory board of the Historic Context on the Underground Railroad in Delaware, Underground Railroad Coalition of Delaware.
Other works
In addition to her book on Tubman, Larson published her 2008 work The Assassin's Accomplice, about Mary Surratt's role in the assassination of Abraham Lincoln. In 2015.
She is also the author of the 2015 Rosemary: The Hidden Kennedy Daughter, about Rosemary Kennedy, the mentally disabled sister of President John F. Kennedy.
Larson has also contributed articles and reviews to the Library Quarterly; Afro-Americans In New York Life and History; and a variety of other publications.
Honors & Fellowships
2015 - Wilbur H. Siebert Award, National Park Service Network to Freedom Program
2013 - Commendation, South Caroline House of Representatives Resolution
2007- Education Excellence Award 2007, Maryland Historical Trust
- Price Research Fellowship, William L. Clements Library, University of Michigan
- Fellowship, John Nicholas Brown Center for the Study of American Civilization, Brown University
- University Dissertation Fellowship, University of New Hampshire
- Margaret Storrs Grierson Scholar-in-Residence Fellowship, Smith College
- Mary Catherine Mooney Fellowship, Boston Athenaeum
Book Reviews
The tragic life of Rosemary Kennedy, the intellectually disabled member of the Kennedy clan, has been well documented in many histories of this famous family. But she has often been treated as an afterthought, a secondary character kept out of sight during the pivotal 1960s. Now the third child of Joseph and Rose Kennedy takes center stage in Rosemary: The Hidden Kennedy Daughter, by Kate Clifford Larson, a biography that chronicles her life with fresh details and tells how her famous siblings were affected by—and reacted to—Rosemary's struggles…[Larson] has amplified this well-told tale with newly released material from the John F. Kennedy Library and a few interviews. By making Rosemary the central character, she has produced a valuable account of a mental health tragedy, and an influential family's belated efforts to make amends.
Meryl Gordon - New York Times Book Review
[E]ngrossing.... This younger sister of John F. Kennedy exhibited developmental delays from an early age. The author makes it evident that an understanding of special needs, especially those of children, was sorely lacking in the early 20th century.... [An] expertly researched...and candid examination. —Mary Jennings, Camano Island Lib., WA
Library Journal
Fascinating but heartbreaking reading...[with] questions that will haunt the reader long after the last page is turned.
BookPage
Well-researched and fascinating.... Heartbreaking and illuminating, this will serve not only Kennedy fans but also those curious about the history of disabilities in the U.S.
Booklist
In-depth coverage of one Kennedy daughter who never gained the spotlight like her siblings.... A well-researched, entertaining, and illuminating biography that should take pride of place over another recent Rosemary bio, Elizabeth Koehler-Pentacoff's The Missing Kennedy.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
Use our LitLovers Book Club Resources; they can help with discussions for any book:
• How to Discuss a Book (helpful discussion tips)
• Generic Discussion Questions—Fiction and Nonfiction
• Read-Think-Talk (a guided reading chart)
Also, consider these LitLovers talking points to help start a discussion for Rosemary:
1. How much did you know about Rosemary Kennedy before reading this book? What surprised you the most about her history...and about the Kennedy family?
2. Talk about young Rosemary—before her symptoms became so severe? What was she like as a child and as a young woman?
3. What role did the Kennedy parents play in their daughter's life, and what was its effect on her. How did she interact with her siblings?
4. Given the advances in treatment of mental disorders, how would doctors diagnose Rosemary's disorder today? How would her treatment be different? Were other options available back in the 1930s and 40s?
5. Why did Joseph Kennedy choose not to reveal Rosemary's lobotomy to the family? What moral issues, if any, are at stake in both making the decision to lobotomize and in keeping it secret?
6. Talk about the quality of Rosemary's life following her lobotomy? Why did no one visit her for more than two decades?
7. What do you think of Joseph Kennedy, his ambitions and obsessions?
8. Talk about Eunice Kennedy and her commitment to improving the lives of those with mental illness. How familiar were you with her work?
(Questions by LitLovers. Please feel free to use them, online or off, with attribution. Thanks.)
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The Missing Kennedy: Rosemary Kennedy and the Secret Bonds of Four Women
Elizabeth Koehler-Pentacoff, 2015
Bancroft Press
270 pp.
ISBN-13: 9781610881746
Summary
Rosemary (Rosie) Kennedy was born in 1918, the first daughter of a wealthy Bostonian couple who later would become known as the patriarch and matriarch of America’s most famous and celebrated family.
Elizabeth Koehler was born in 1957, the first and only child of a struggling Wisconsin farm family.
What, besides their religion, did these two very different Catholic women have in common?
One person really: Stella Koehler, a charismatic woman of the cloth who became Sister Paulus Koehler after taking her vows with the Sisters of the Third Order of St. Francis of Assisi. Sister Paulus was Elizabeth's Wisconsin aunt. For thirty-five years―indeed much of her adult life―Sister Paulus was Rosie Kennedy’s caregiver.
And a caregiver, tragically, had become necessary after Rosie, a slow learner prone to emotional outbursts, underwent one of America’s first lobotomies―an operation Joseph Kennedy was assured would normalize Rosie’s life. It did not. Rosie’s condition became decidedly worse.
After the procedure, Joe Kennedy sent Rosie to rural Wisconsin and Saint Coletta, a Catholic-run home for the mentally disabled. For the next two decades, she never saw her siblings, her parents, or any other relative, the doctors having issued stern instructions that even the occasional family visit would be emotionally disruptive to Rosie.
Following Joseph Kennedy’s stroke in 1961, the Kennedy family, led by mother Rose and sister Eunice Kennedy Shriver, resumed face to face contact with Rosie. It was also about then that a young Elizabeth Koehler began paying visits to Rosie.
In this insightful and poignant memoir, based in part on Sister Paulus’ private notes and augmented by nearly one-hundred never-before-seen photos, Elizabeth Koehler-Pentacoff recalls the many happy and memorable times spent with the "missing Kennedy."
Based on independent research and interviews with the Shriver family, she tries to come to grips with Joseph Kennedy’s well-intended decision to submit her eldest daughter to a still experimental medical procedure, and his later decision to keep Rosie almost entirely out of public view.
She looks at the many parallels between Rosie’s post-operative life, her own, and those of the two families.
And, most important, she traces how, entirely because of Rosie, the Kennedy and Shriver families embarked on an exceedingly consequential campaign advancing the cause of the developmentally disabled―a campaign that continues to this day.
Ten years after Rosie’s death comes a highly personal yet fitting testimonial to a sad but truly meaningful and important life. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—1957
• Where—Milwaukee, Wisconsin, USA
• Education—B.A., California State University-Fresno
• Currently—lives in northern California
Elizabeth Koehler-Pentacoff is an American author of both fiction and nonfiction for children and adults. She wrote the instructional book, The ABCs of Writing for Children, which was a Writer's Digest Book Club selection. Her biography The Missing Kennedy: Rosemary Kennedy and the Secret Bonds of Four Women was published in 2015.
Personal life
Koehler-Pentacoff was born in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and grew up in nearby Oconomowoc. She moved to California as a teenager to attend college, graduating from California State University Fresno with a double major in children's theater and liberal studies.
In 1981 she married Robert Pentacoff. Before turning to freelance writing, she taught elementary and middle school and directed children's theater. When her son, Christopher, was young, she wrote stories for him, which led her to writing books for children.
Career
When Koehler-Pentacoff began writing children's books, she also instructed adult teachers through California State University, East Bay. She taught weekend classes of creative drama and improvisation and later taught writing for children and writing comedy through UC Santa Cruz Extension located in Cupertino.
She has worked with the California Writers Club |Mt. Diablo Branch's Young Writers Contest since 1995. (Adapted from Wikipedia. Retrieved 10/20/2015.)
Book Reviews
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Publishers Weekly
[C]enters on the treatment [Rosemary Kennedy] received at a Catholic nursing facility from Sister Paulus Koehler, the author's aunt, who cared for Rosemary during much of her adult life.... [A] poignant look at the life of a lesser-known yet remarkable Kennedy, with its dozens of never-before-published photos .—Mary Jennings, Camano Island Lib., WA
Library Journal
With average prose, Koehler-Pentacoff flip-flops from one family to another, making the narrative a bit difficult to follow, but she does reveal an untold chapter in the Kennedy saga.... A middling memoir that provides a few interesting glimpses into one member of the Kennedy clan who was almost lost to her family.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
1. What should have been the correct diagnosis of Rosemary’s pre-lobotomy condition?
2. What quality of life did Rosemary lead after her lobotomy?
3. Why did no one visit Rosemary for more than two decades?
4. In what ways did immense good come from Rosemary’s tragic life?
(Questions from the publisher's press kit.)
Also consider these LitLovers talking points for further discussion.
5. Talk about young Rosemary—before her symptoms became so severe? What was she like as a child and as a young woman?
6. How much did you know about Rosemary Kennedy before reading this book? What surprised you the most about her history...and about the Kennedy family?
7. What do you think of Joseph Kennedy, his ambitions and obsessions? Why did he never reveal the truth of Rosemary's lobotomy to the family? What moral issues, if any, are at stake in both making the decision for the lobotomy and in keeping it secret?
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