Curious, Healing

Books about healing, business, and fun

survival story

“CrowHeart” by Keelin Anderson

by Leave a Comment

Subtitle: becoming unwounded, a memoir of transformation

Recommended to me by: Keelin Anderson

To tell her story of healing from incest and emotional abuse, Keelin Anderson weaves together daily narrative, fiction, quotes, tarot readings, and dreams, all in present tense.

As I read, I saw places where our paths have overlapped, and places where they have diverged. We have both struggled with finding respectful healers to help us, and have vowed to be respectful of our own clients and their individual processes.

She consciously decides to invite spirit guides into her process. I did that for a while, but found that not all spirit guides are trustworthy, and I was better off looking within for guidance. I think there are many ways of contacting Spirit and healing.

Available from Amazon.

“Leaving the Saints” by Martha Beck

by 1 Comment

Subtitle: How I Lost the Mormons and Found My Faith

Recommended to me by: Reading Martha Beck’s older books

I first read this years ago and loved it. I came back to it while writing a (forthcoming) article about spiritual abuse and faith. Since I last read it, I read her newer book “Steering by Starlight” and saw that her latest book is about weight-loss, so I started re-reading with trepidation. I still like this one, though!

This book is honest about extreme sexual and spiritual abuse and its effects, side by side with humorous details about daily life. She talks about forgiveness without preaching (much). She talks about how crazymaking it is to have someone casually deny reality. She talks about how wrenching it is to lose family connections because she tells the truth.

She also talks about her personal search for faith, first as the seeking camel, then as the discerning lion, then as the innocent, playful child.

In her last act as a practicing Mormon, she spoke to a huge crowd about domestic violence. “If something I said feels right to you, believe it. If it feels wrong, disbelieve it. The choice to believe or disbelieve, that’s what makes you free.”

Available at bookshop.org.

“The Jade Peony” by Wayson Choy

by Leave a Comment

Recommended to me by: atdelphi

This novel is an intricate work of art, assembled from one precise detail after another, illuminating the lives of a Chinese family of immigrants to Vancouver, B.C. in the 1930s and early 40s.

The story is told in three sections, from the viewpoints of three children. First the girl, then the second-oldest adopted boy, then the youngest boy. Entwined with their intensely pursued hobbies and heartbreaking losses, we learn about the adults around them, especially the women.

Matter-of-factly, Choy focuses his story on those with less privilege instead of those with more. Poor Chinese immigrants rather than established Canadian citizens. Children rather than adults, but not the special First Son. Women of different ages. A disabled, disfigured man.

The characters are vulnerable, grumpy, and real, bearing pain as best they can, sharing what they have to give each other joy. While reading, I felt as if I sat down to dinner with them, hearing about their lives close up.

Read this book!

Available at biblio.com.

“The Necessary Beggar” by Susan Palwick

by Leave a Comment

Recommended to me by: Loved Susan Palwick’s first book Flying in Place

The Necessary Beggar begins with a flurry of long hyphenated names and fantastical pronouncements. “It’s an allegory,” I told myself, and kept reading. The story soon descends into grimness at a US internment camp, but does not lose its fairy tale tone.

Even at 6 years old, the central character Zamatryna-Harani Erolorit is super-competent and aware. She continues to excel at everything, including emotional self-control, growing up as an American teen.

Alcoholism, Christianity, family ties, lies, despair, and unlikely salvations weave through the book beneath the fairy tale names and gritty details of daily life. I never felt fully drawn in to either the daily details or the magical salvations.

I’m still puzzling over the allegory. They use prayer rugs in the fairy tale land – does that mean they represent Muslims? The evangelical Christians are not shown in 100% positive light, but they do get a lot of air time, and they do dramatically rescue the family.

The fairy tale extended family stays together no matter what. Impetuous “true love” both imperils and saves them. The very elaborateness of the book’s plot contradicts any conclusions about “love conquers all.”

Available at bookshop.org.

“Voices from the Inside” by David A. Karp and Gretchen E. Sisson

by Leave a Comment

Subtitle: Readings on the experiences of mental illness

I found this book because I was curious about Caroline Knapp’s writing after reading Gail Caldwell’s memoir about their friendship, and I read it because I wanted to learn about mental illness without its stereotype of causing violence. In fact, [v]iolence is not a symptom of psychotic illnesses such as bipolar disorder and schizophrenia.

Unfortunately, this book propagates rather than counters the stereotype. Many of the schizophrenic people’s stories include violent fantasies and actions. The essays also include violent treatment of people with mental illness in mental hospitals and prisons.

The book is intended for classroom use. Each essay is preceded by an introduction telling the reader how to interpret the essay, and followed by discussion questions which are clearly slanted toward preferred answers.

Caroline Knapp’s essay, “Denial and Addiction,” talks about the effortless contortions that make alcoholics’ drinking look acceptable to themselves. “Denial can make your drinking feel as elusive and changeable as Proteus, capable of altering form in the blink of an eye.” Calmly honest, she describes her own and others’ self-destructive behavior while addicted to alcohol.

Other essays describe the experiences of schizophrenic psychosis, depression, mania, taking Prozac for OCD, recovering from anorexia, and the aftermath of a spouse’s suicide.

While I applaud the authors’ venture into personal stories rather than aggregate statistics, I think academia has a long way to go in its attitudes toward people who have mental illnesses.

Available at bookshop.org.

“Torch” by Cheryl Strayed

by Leave a Comment

Recommended to me by: Willamette Writers Portland

In this novel, a rural Minnesota family reels from the mother’s cancer diagnosis. We see Theresa, only 38, and her partner and children grappling with her illness.

I loved the finely detailed setting. The trees, the bears, the snow, and the routinely-traveled distances all bring rural Minnesota to life. The characters not only see and hear, but also smell their environment, from the slightly rotten odor of the first spring thaw, to the shampoo and conditioner in their partner’s hair.

I was puzzled by the way the characters left their inner lives largely unexamined, and instead fell into casual sex, instant relationships, and sometimes drugs to manage their emotions.

Also, do they really have group and individual therapy in jail, even in rural Minnesota? It seems too practical and enlightened to be true in our punishment-oriented society.

This is a well-written book, but I found it hard to read. There is no physical violence, but the characters seem painfully unaware of the emotional violence they are doing to each other.

Available at bookshop.org.