Status
Available
Call number
Publication
Seal Press (2012), Edition: Original, 384 pages
Description
Biography & Autobiography. Nonfiction. HTML:In 1958, when Chana Wilson was seven, her mother attempted suicide, holding a rifle to her head and pulling the trigger. The gun jammed and she was taken away to a mental hospital. On her return, Chana became the caretaker of her heavily medicated, suicidal mother. It would be many years before she learned the secret of her mother�??s anguish: her love affair with another married woman, and the psychiatric treatment aimed at curing her of her lesbianism. Riding Fury Home spans forty years of the intense, complex relationship between Chana and her mother�??the trauma of their early years together, the transformation and joy they found when they both came out in the 1970s, and the deep bond that grew between them. From the intolerance of the �??50s to the exhilaration of the women�??s movement of the �??70s and beyond, the book traces the profound ways in which their two lives were impacted by the social landscape of their time. Exquisitely written and devastatingly honest, Riding Fury Home is a shattering account of one family�??s struggle against homophobia and mental illness�??and a powerful story of healing, forgive… (more)
User reviews
LibraryThing member mayaspector
In an ideal world, no child would have to be the primary caretaker of a mother. Or watch that parent repeatedly try to commit suicide. Or live for extended periods of time apart from the mother who is institutionalized, enduring repeated electroshock treatments. But we don’t live in an ideal
Wilson’s memoir is a truly compelling read. Not only is her story completely engaging, but her writing is lucid, honest and clear. The complicated feelings a child would have for a mother so tormented and unable to parent are described brilliantly. Not until Wilson was a grown young woman, on her own, did she discover the underlying cause of her mother’s depression and abusive psychiatric treatment – she had been in love all those years ago with another woman.
In the mean time, Wilson’s own explorations led her to being with women. Both she and her mother came out as the women’s movement and changing times created the possibility of women living openly as lesbians. Their struggles, reconciliation and honest communication and love lead them to the kind of closeness one would wish for a mother and daughter. Not that things were always easy. Not that all resentment magically disappeared. But that healing could and did happen.
How fortunate we are that Chana Wilson had the courage to write her story, in all of its complexity, for it must have taken a boatload of it. (And she had the writing chops to do it, too.) It’s a wonder to read.
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world, and Chana Wilson grew up having to experience all of these nightmares.Wilson’s memoir is a truly compelling read. Not only is her story completely engaging, but her writing is lucid, honest and clear. The complicated feelings a child would have for a mother so tormented and unable to parent are described brilliantly. Not until Wilson was a grown young woman, on her own, did she discover the underlying cause of her mother’s depression and abusive psychiatric treatment – she had been in love all those years ago with another woman.
In the mean time, Wilson’s own explorations led her to being with women. Both she and her mother came out as the women’s movement and changing times created the possibility of women living openly as lesbians. Their struggles, reconciliation and honest communication and love lead them to the kind of closeness one would wish for a mother and daughter. Not that things were always easy. Not that all resentment magically disappeared. But that healing could and did happen.
How fortunate we are that Chana Wilson had the courage to write her story, in all of its complexity, for it must have taken a boatload of it. (And she had the writing chops to do it, too.) It’s a wonder to read.
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LibraryThing member annie.michelle
It was the title that got me, then the cover and then the content of this memoir!
Wonderful book of a really awful, lonely and frightening childhood. I have worked with troubled kids in the past and this story really resonated with me, my heart went out to the author as this story was inspired by
You would think that a child with a harrowing upbringing would loathe the parent, in fact it can be just the opposite. The need for love by and from a parent is all consuming with kids just as with the author who wanted a whole and normal relationship with her very troubled mother and for most of her childhood ended up being the adult and taking care of the both of them.
The story starts out with seven year old Karen (the author) and her dad going to visit her mother Gloria who held a rifle to her head and had the gun not jammed she would have found herself splattered on the wall instead of at the mental hospital.
Her mother is in and out of the hospital throughout Karen’s childhood, occasionally coming home on a pass for some brief and very scary times. Karen must make sure her mother does not commit suicide or pass out from too many drugs or burn the house down with her ever present cigarettes… Karen is left alone with her mom most days and nights as her father who, can absolutely not handle his wife rushes off to work each day and works late each night.
It is not until farther into the book we find out that part of the mental anguish the mother has suffered is because she is gay and in the late 50’s this was still a very “taboo” subject.
In grade school we see Karen being left alone to parent her parent while her spineless, frustrated without a clue father goes overseas for a job and leaves Karen alone in the house with her mom. This is the part that broke my heart, with neighbors coming over and trying to help and at the same time wanting to put some distance between them and this troubled family.
The story moves on through Karen and Gloria’s life and we see the relationship and the love with these two remarkable women grow stronger.
Gloria gets some horrendous treatment at the hospital, shock therapy a large assortment of drugs all to cure her from being gay and it isn’t until years later that mother and daughter finally heal and bond as Karen also comes out as a lesbian.
This mother and daughter relationship is heartwarming, harrowing and from the story written here I can clearly see Karen (Chana) is doing just fine. A wonderful read!
Wonderful book of a really awful, lonely and frightening childhood. I have worked with troubled kids in the past and this story really resonated with me, my heart went out to the author as this story was inspired by
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her childhood. You would think that a child with a harrowing upbringing would loathe the parent, in fact it can be just the opposite. The need for love by and from a parent is all consuming with kids just as with the author who wanted a whole and normal relationship with her very troubled mother and for most of her childhood ended up being the adult and taking care of the both of them.
The story starts out with seven year old Karen (the author) and her dad going to visit her mother Gloria who held a rifle to her head and had the gun not jammed she would have found herself splattered on the wall instead of at the mental hospital.
Her mother is in and out of the hospital throughout Karen’s childhood, occasionally coming home on a pass for some brief and very scary times. Karen must make sure her mother does not commit suicide or pass out from too many drugs or burn the house down with her ever present cigarettes… Karen is left alone with her mom most days and nights as her father who, can absolutely not handle his wife rushes off to work each day and works late each night.
It is not until farther into the book we find out that part of the mental anguish the mother has suffered is because she is gay and in the late 50’s this was still a very “taboo” subject.
In grade school we see Karen being left alone to parent her parent while her spineless, frustrated without a clue father goes overseas for a job and leaves Karen alone in the house with her mom. This is the part that broke my heart, with neighbors coming over and trying to help and at the same time wanting to put some distance between them and this troubled family.
The story moves on through Karen and Gloria’s life and we see the relationship and the love with these two remarkable women grow stronger.
Gloria gets some horrendous treatment at the hospital, shock therapy a large assortment of drugs all to cure her from being gay and it isn’t until years later that mother and daughter finally heal and bond as Karen also comes out as a lesbian.
This mother and daughter relationship is heartwarming, harrowing and from the story written here I can clearly see Karen (Chana) is doing just fine. A wonderful read!
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LibraryThing member Brainannex
A harrowing yet fundamentally affirming memoir of a mother and daughter coming to terms with their own sexualities. Becomes more of a critique of women's medical/psychiatric treatment in the 50s but blossoms into a sweet non-traditional family story.
LibraryThing member AmphipodGirl
Chana Wilson had an incredibly hard childhood. Her mother, Gloria, was often suicidal, in and out of mental hospitals, heavily altered by electroshock and psychiatric drugs. For one year of grade school, her father was away in England, leaving her alone with her mom. During that year, Gloria
Later, when Chana was a young woman, she learned that her mother was a lesbian. Her depression began when her woman lover ended their relationship and said they both needed to "be good wives and open their legs for their husbands". Medical professionals tried to "help" her by getting her to adjust to her heterosexual marriage. This sense that she was broken, and this denial of her core self, crushed Gloria for a long time.
But the human spirit is a powerful thing. In the 1970s, Chana and Gloria both came out as lesbians and had an exciting, glorious time riding the wave of cultural change and liberation. Over time, they healed much of the hurt in themselves and between them.
This book is many things. It's a history of social change, from the repression of the 50s through the social revolutions of the 1960s and 70s to Chana's state-recognized same-sex marriage in the 21st century. Chana was in the thick of these revolutions, active first in the antiwar movement and then the women's and gay liberation movements. She did a lot of classic hippie things, hitchhiking, crossing the country in a VW van, living on the land in northern California, being under FBI surveilance...that part was vivid cultural history.
It's also a portrait of a mother-daughter relationship, from the reversal of her childhood, where the young Chana has to put her heavily medicated mother to bed and be sure to stub out her cigarette, through coming out, communication, and healing, to caring for her mother again in Gloria's final illness.
Finally, and in some ways for me most powerfully, it's a detailed tracing of Chana's own internal emotional experiences and growth. Some of the moments that grabbed me most were the ones where Chana describes the actual physical sensations of emotion, conscious and unconscious, in her body -- the heavy tightness that comes when we have fears we won't name, the lightness that comes with freedom. Tightness in the chest, the rush of blood in the temples...it struck me that she must have really taken herself back into these moments in her mind to write the book.
I found this a very hard book to put down. It's an exciting, true-to-life, loving, difficult book. I recommend it highly.
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attempted suicide twice. Chana cared for her mom, cleaned up after those attempts, and never told her dad about them. Later, when Chana was a young woman, she learned that her mother was a lesbian. Her depression began when her woman lover ended their relationship and said they both needed to "be good wives and open their legs for their husbands". Medical professionals tried to "help" her by getting her to adjust to her heterosexual marriage. This sense that she was broken, and this denial of her core self, crushed Gloria for a long time.
But the human spirit is a powerful thing. In the 1970s, Chana and Gloria both came out as lesbians and had an exciting, glorious time riding the wave of cultural change and liberation. Over time, they healed much of the hurt in themselves and between them.
This book is many things. It's a history of social change, from the repression of the 50s through the social revolutions of the 1960s and 70s to Chana's state-recognized same-sex marriage in the 21st century. Chana was in the thick of these revolutions, active first in the antiwar movement and then the women's and gay liberation movements. She did a lot of classic hippie things, hitchhiking, crossing the country in a VW van, living on the land in northern California, being under FBI surveilance...that part was vivid cultural history.
It's also a portrait of a mother-daughter relationship, from the reversal of her childhood, where the young Chana has to put her heavily medicated mother to bed and be sure to stub out her cigarette, through coming out, communication, and healing, to caring for her mother again in Gloria's final illness.
Finally, and in some ways for me most powerfully, it's a detailed tracing of Chana's own internal emotional experiences and growth. Some of the moments that grabbed me most were the ones where Chana describes the actual physical sensations of emotion, conscious and unconscious, in her body -- the heavy tightness that comes when we have fears we won't name, the lightness that comes with freedom. Tightness in the chest, the rush of blood in the temples...it struck me that she must have really taken herself back into these moments in her mind to write the book.
I found this a very hard book to put down. It's an exciting, true-to-life, loving, difficult book. I recommend it highly.
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LibraryThing member csoki637
I picked up this book after hearing an amazing reading by the author. It's an intense, enthralling story.
Trapped in a suffocating marriage in the 1950s, Chana Wilson's mother, Gloria, tries to kill herself, but fails. By a twist of fate, the gun jams. She is quickly taken away. Going in and out of
It's only later, when Wilson (then called Karen) comes out to her mother as a lesbian, that she learns about Gloria's affair with another woman, about the heartbreak and homophobia, about the therapy meant to cure her. The women's liberation movement is gaining momentum, and as a lesbian feminist, Karen is in the thick of it; pretty soon, so is Gloria. As Gloria rediscovers the joy of life, Karen grows close to her mother again, finding both a best friend and a mother, the figure so lacking since she was a second grader. And though Wilson could have romanticized their relationship, she doesn't; painting a clear picture of her anger and pain, mixed in with her love for her mother.
Wilson brings the period alive; reading it, I wished I could have been there. Her careful use of detail makes it feel very real. Laura Nyro's "Stoned Soul Picnic" plays in the background as Karen and her first girlfriend kiss for the first time. At college, Karen sends her mother a copy of the classic anthology Sisterhood Is Powerful. Later, when Karen, then Chana, is living in the East Bay, when she has an awkward encounter at a concert at La Peña in Berkeley. This trove of details is especially satisfying if you're familiar with any of the places Wilson's lived: New Jersey, New York, the Bay Area.
Though the book spans forty years, Wilson narrates with an emotional depth that makes it feel urgent throughout, hard to put down. It's a memoir of Wilson's life, but it's ultimately Gloria's story, from the early years of her marriage to her death from cancer. After her diagnosis, she declares: "I'm going to lick this thing, and I am going to live to write a book about my life." Although Gloria never does write that book, her daughter's memoir offers a beautiful tribute to her legacy.
Trapped in a suffocating marriage in the 1950s, Chana Wilson's mother, Gloria, tries to kill herself, but fails. By a twist of fate, the gun jams. She is quickly taken away. Going in and out of
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psychiatric hospitals during the peak of electroshock therapy, she tries, again and again, to die. Wilson describes the distress of a child losing her mother, finding a mother who isn't really there, taking care of a mother who can't be trusted to take her medication properly or put herself to bed. A mother who at any moment may disappear.It's only later, when Wilson (then called Karen) comes out to her mother as a lesbian, that she learns about Gloria's affair with another woman, about the heartbreak and homophobia, about the therapy meant to cure her. The women's liberation movement is gaining momentum, and as a lesbian feminist, Karen is in the thick of it; pretty soon, so is Gloria. As Gloria rediscovers the joy of life, Karen grows close to her mother again, finding both a best friend and a mother, the figure so lacking since she was a second grader. And though Wilson could have romanticized their relationship, she doesn't; painting a clear picture of her anger and pain, mixed in with her love for her mother.
Wilson brings the period alive; reading it, I wished I could have been there. Her careful use of detail makes it feel very real. Laura Nyro's "Stoned Soul Picnic" plays in the background as Karen and her first girlfriend kiss for the first time. At college, Karen sends her mother a copy of the classic anthology Sisterhood Is Powerful. Later, when Karen, then Chana, is living in the East Bay, when she has an awkward encounter at a concert at La Peña in Berkeley. This trove of details is especially satisfying if you're familiar with any of the places Wilson's lived: New Jersey, New York, the Bay Area.
Though the book spans forty years, Wilson narrates with an emotional depth that makes it feel urgent throughout, hard to put down. It's a memoir of Wilson's life, but it's ultimately Gloria's story, from the early years of her marriage to her death from cancer. After her diagnosis, she declares: "I'm going to lick this thing, and I am going to live to write a book about my life." Although Gloria never does write that book, her daughter's memoir offers a beautiful tribute to her legacy.
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Awards
Independent Publisher Book Awards (Gold — 2013)
Goldie Award (Finalist — 2013)
ALA Over the Rainbow Book List (Selection — Memoir/Biography — 2013)
Language
Original language
English
ISBN
1580054323 / 9781580054324