Kookooland by Gloria Norris
From the Goodreads Synopsis: In the tradition of The Glass Castle and With or Without You, a bracingly funny and chilling true crime memoir about a girl's gutsy journey to escape her charismatic yet cruel father's reign - an unforgettable story of violence, love, and, ultimately, triumph.
It's the 1960s in Manchester, New Hampshire, and little Gloria Norris is growing up in the projects. Her parents are Jimmy and Shirley, her sister is Virginia, and her cat is Sylvester. A photo might show a happy, young family, but only a dummkopf would believe that.
Jimmy's a wiseguy who relies on charm, snappy wit, and an unyielding belief that he's above the law; as his youngest daughter, Gloria is just like him. Or at least, she knows that she needs to stay on his good side so he doesn't brain her one. Jimmy is violent: he's passionate about hunting, horse races and slasher flicks, and he's prone to outbursts that have him screaming and reaching for his shotgun. Shirley, mild and meek as she is, tries to protect the girls from Jimmy's most brutal moments, but the thing with Jimmy is that it's his way or the highway. Virginia, older and wiser, tries to stand up to Jimmy. Gloria just wants to make him happy.
He takes Gloria everywhere. Fishing, hunting, drive-ins, and to his parents dingy bar - a hole in the wall with pickled eggs and pickled alkies. The only place Gloria can't go is the dive where Jimmy bets on horses. It's there, as she sits and waits for hours on end, that she imagines a life different from her own. Gloria's favorite of Jimmy's haunts? Hank Piasceny's gun shop. While Hank and Jimmy throw good-humored insults at each other, Gloria talks to Hank's daughter, Susan. Smart, pretty, kind, and ambitious, Susan is Gloria's idol. She represents everything Gloria wants to be - and can be, as long as she tries as hard in school. Just like Susan tells her too.
It's only when Hank commits an unspeakable act of violence, that Gloria and Susan suddenly find themselves on different paths. Hank's violence and Susan's grief serve as eerie warnings of a life to come, especially as Jimmy falls into a depression that has him making threats and reaching for his guns more often and with greater relish.
Against all odds, Gloria's fiery determination takes shape and she sets herself on a path away from the cycle of violence whirling around her - in her home, in the projects, in her small New Hampshire city and even in the national landscape where the assassinations of President Kennedy and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and the brutality of Vietnam underscore the tragedies she witnesses up close.
Gloria Norris's unconventional coming-of-age memoir jangles with electricity and suspense. The life of this gutsy young girl is unforgettable and inspiring, wrought with dark humor and tenderness. From the darkness her irrepressible pluck and determination emerges and Gloria triumphantly carves out a good life on her own terms.
It's the 1960s in Manchester, New Hampshire, and little Gloria Norris is growing up in the projects. Her parents are Jimmy and Shirley, her sister is Virginia, and her cat is Sylvester. A photo might show a happy, young family, but only a dummkopf would believe that.
Jimmy's a wiseguy who relies on charm, snappy wit, and an unyielding belief that he's above the law; as his youngest daughter, Gloria is just like him. Or at least, she knows that she needs to stay on his good side so he doesn't brain her one. Jimmy is violent: he's passionate about hunting, horse races and slasher flicks, and he's prone to outbursts that have him screaming and reaching for his shotgun. Shirley, mild and meek as she is, tries to protect the girls from Jimmy's most brutal moments, but the thing with Jimmy is that it's his way or the highway. Virginia, older and wiser, tries to stand up to Jimmy. Gloria just wants to make him happy.
He takes Gloria everywhere. Fishing, hunting, drive-ins, and to his parents dingy bar - a hole in the wall with pickled eggs and pickled alkies. The only place Gloria can't go is the dive where Jimmy bets on horses. It's there, as she sits and waits for hours on end, that she imagines a life different from her own. Gloria's favorite of Jimmy's haunts? Hank Piasceny's gun shop. While Hank and Jimmy throw good-humored insults at each other, Gloria talks to Hank's daughter, Susan. Smart, pretty, kind, and ambitious, Susan is Gloria's idol. She represents everything Gloria wants to be - and can be, as long as she tries as hard in school. Just like Susan tells her too.
It's only when Hank commits an unspeakable act of violence, that Gloria and Susan suddenly find themselves on different paths. Hank's violence and Susan's grief serve as eerie warnings of a life to come, especially as Jimmy falls into a depression that has him making threats and reaching for his guns more often and with greater relish.
Against all odds, Gloria's fiery determination takes shape and she sets herself on a path away from the cycle of violence whirling around her - in her home, in the projects, in her small New Hampshire city and even in the national landscape where the assassinations of President Kennedy and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and the brutality of Vietnam underscore the tragedies she witnesses up close.
Gloria Norris's unconventional coming-of-age memoir jangles with electricity and suspense. The life of this gutsy young girl is unforgettable and inspiring, wrought with dark humor and tenderness. From the darkness her irrepressible pluck and determination emerges and Gloria triumphantly carves out a good life on her own terms.
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My review: This book was very engaging and pulls you along to find out what happens next, you root for Gloria the whole way, indeed you root for all the characters. I read the book in just a few days. The resilience of a child came through clear in the beginning, well, through the whole book really, but especially her earlier years, willing to justify her father's actions to avoid repercussions and still in the "daddy is my hero" time period. Humorous and sobering at the same time. And in his defense, her father had moments where he would take them fun places and try to have a family life, but simply did not know how to control his demons nor the trappings of his generation, nor the trappings of his upbringing. Its easy to sit back and judge him, but you do see glimmers of humanity under all that anger and prejudice, and suppressed pain there as well. A slice of humanity in all its sometimes warts and ugliness and what coping mechanisms were used to survive. A glimpse into a side of life I, fortunately never had to experience. How many homes deal with this scenario that never come to light? The telling of her story was also deliberately not sugar-coated and a glimpse into her searching for meaning, the beginnings of who she thought Susan was, from the naive mind of a child, her longing to have a friendship with her, her discovery that her belief that Susan was doing better than she was in error, the ultimate truth that Susan was struggling with her own life's challenges, and her own dysfunctional family, her wish to become her friend finally coming to fruition but after many hard roads for both of them and years of searching for her. Gloria skillfully weaves the individual stories of each person, herself, her father, her mother, the grandmother, Susan and each individual member of her family, into a coherent whole and how each life intertwines the others. You feel the palpable pain of each one. You pull for each person, your mind hopes and prays, maybe this one or that one will finally come to their senses. The intertwining theme is each person surviving the current abusive situation figuring out whatever coping mechanism they can, struggling against despondency, discouragement, and hopelessness that they can ever finally get out of the situation. That feeling of being trapped with the abusive tendencies of her father. Gloria determined one way or another that she was going to get out, out of the projects and away from her father, but was torn because she knew it would cause an explosive reaction from him and would cut her off from her mother. The mother's story and her struggles were very poignant as well, and Gloria's ultimate discovery of her mother going back to her father, in the face of all the ugliness, being a better choice than leaving him. He struggled with mental illness, and though abusive, for her to leave him alone to his own devices, no telling what that would have meant for him, she in a way, by being willing to be controlled, was keeping him under control, kept him from losing his temper in worse ways and perhaps shooting someone and ending up in prison, etc. I know this review is a bit random and rambling but there was a lot to digest in this book. My mind returns to it once in a while. I would definitely recommend it, especially if you like to read about people, in all their frustrating, puzzling fascinating complexity, and are searching for what makes them tick. You think, how could she stay, the mother, how could Gloria miss her father sometimes, even after she had managed to get away, why did she feel compelled to go back and make sure they were ok sometimes. Family ties, no matter how horrible the family is sometimes, or how bad the situation, are strong. Her father would verbally, most often , and sometimes physically abuse them, but hurt or insult one of his family members and he was ready to "knock their block off". A lot of "meat and potatoes" to this book, I will likely go back at some point and reread it as well. A skillfully written slice of humanity. Kudos to the author, and I would like read more by her if she decides to write more in the future. Great descriptive style, no dry spots. **I received this book as an Advance Reader Copy from Netgalley**
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