The Trouble with Being Born

A Novel

Fiction & Literature, Literary
Cover of the book The Trouble with Being Born by Jeffrey DeShell, University of Alabama Press
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Author: Jeffrey DeShell ISBN: 9781573668101
Publisher: University of Alabama Press Publication: September 15, 2009
Imprint: Fiction Collective 2 Language: English
Author: Jeffrey DeShell
ISBN: 9781573668101
Publisher: University of Alabama Press
Publication: September 15, 2009
Imprint: Fiction Collective 2
Language: English

Novel, memoir, and anti-memoir, The Trouble with Being Born depicts the lives of Frances and Joe, husband and wife. Told in their own alternating voices, they recall their lives, separately and together, and the divergent trajectories of their origins and aspirations.

 

Frances's story moves in reverse: beginning with her dementia in old age, her narrative moves backwards into lucidity, through a cruel and loveless marriage, the birth of her son Jeffrey, and into a childhood that she recalls fondly as a time of innocence and belonging.

  

Joe's memories begin in childhood, a bewildered boy struggling with poverty, racism, and isolation, and we watch him grow into a manhood fraught with wrong turns, rage, betrayals, and disappointment, caring in the end for the woman he has long mistreated.

 

The Trouble with Being Born is a stark meditation on memory and the struggle–both necessary and impossible–to remember.

 

View on Amazon View on AbeBooks View on Kobo View on B.Depository View on eBay View on Walmart

Novel, memoir, and anti-memoir, The Trouble with Being Born depicts the lives of Frances and Joe, husband and wife. Told in their own alternating voices, they recall their lives, separately and together, and the divergent trajectories of their origins and aspirations.

 

Frances's story moves in reverse: beginning with her dementia in old age, her narrative moves backwards into lucidity, through a cruel and loveless marriage, the birth of her son Jeffrey, and into a childhood that she recalls fondly as a time of innocence and belonging.

  

Joe's memories begin in childhood, a bewildered boy struggling with poverty, racism, and isolation, and we watch him grow into a manhood fraught with wrong turns, rage, betrayals, and disappointment, caring in the end for the woman he has long mistreated.

 

The Trouble with Being Born is a stark meditation on memory and the struggle–both necessary and impossible–to remember.

 

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