Rating: 
Summary: Profound Understanding
Review: Taking a powerfully disturbing story and writing about it in a simple, almost poetic, manner is truly profound. Walter De Milly's personal story about child abuse, his relationship with his father, and his own way of dealing with it and understanding it, is a great accomplishment in the art of storytelling. The book deals with the loss of innocence, disturbing childhood memories, and the interaction between Walter and his father, both as a child and adult. One sentence in the book lends dramatic insight into the feelings of the author throughout his ordeal and the aftermath: "The eyes scream what the lips dare not whisper." One can only imagine how a boy's silence could be ignored when all one had to do was look into his eyes. It is a story well told and strongly felt by any reader.
Rating:
Summary: Extraordinarily powerful book!
Review: This book tells my story better than I could have! This is very important information that needs to be told and Walter has done a powerful and courageous job of doing it. A MUST READ!Thank you, Walter
Rating:
Summary: Father-Son Incest
Review: Walter de Milly gives a voice to male survivors of incest. His story is compelling and highly informative of the experience of father-son incest. He has shown great courage. His descriptions vividly illustrate the experience of dissociation and splitting. This book has given me the clearest understanding of multiple personality disorder. Through memories he explains the psyche of his father (which is very disturbing), and how his father maintained control over him and secrecy over the incest. We also learn about the culture he grew up in through the reactions to his homosexuality, the keeping of secrets for the purpose of upholding social images, and the belief that incest is a fantasy and not a reality. The reaction of his parents and psychiatrist to his homosexuality and emerging incest memories is heart breaking. He deserved so much more than how he was treated and misunderstood. The difficulties of dealing with incest compounded by the discovery of his homosexuality (being different, having crushes in high school), and then to be misunderstood and put through therapies to make him heterosexual, while his father (a pedophile) was praised as a great man. Throughout the entire book we catch glimmers of hope, and ultimately he is able to end the secrecy and to triumph. He reclaims himself from the lies and abuse. I even began to feel compassion towards his father. He was a sick man, and he was not able to fully face the truth of what he had done before his death (though he never denied that he abused his son or the other boys). The treatment he received disturbed me. I wish there had been a way for everyone in the family to receive better psychotherapy. Walter de Milly writes beautifully. I loved reading about his connections to other people, and especially his friendship with Wallace.
Rating:
Summary: Father-Son Incest
Review: Walter de Milly gives a voice to male survivors of incest. His story is compelling and highly informative of the experience of father-son incest. He has shown great courage. His descriptions vividly illustrate the experience of dissociation and splitting. This book has given me the clearest understanding of multiple personality disorder. Through memories he explains the psyche of his father (which is very disturbing), and how his father maintained control over him and secrecy over the incest. We also learn about the culture he grew up in through the reactions to his homosexuality, the keeping of secrets for the purpose of upholding social images, and the belief that incest is a fantasy and not a reality. The reaction of his parents and psychiatrist to his homosexuality and emerging incest memories is heart breaking. He deserved so much more than how he was treated and misunderstood. The difficulties of dealing with incest compounded by the discovery of his homosexuality (being different, having crushes in high school), and then to be misunderstood and put through therapies to make him heterosexual, while his father (a pedophile) was praised as a great man. Throughout the entire book we catch glimmers of hope, and ultimately he is able to end the secrecy and to triumph. He reclaims himself from the lies and abuse. I even began to feel compassion towards his father. He was a sick man, and he was not able to fully face the truth of what he had done before his death (though he never denied that he abused his son or the other boys). The treatment he received disturbed me. I wish there had been a way for everyone in the family to receive better psychotherapy. Walter de Milly writes beautifully. I loved reading about his connections to other people, and especially his friendship with Wallace.
Rating:
Summary: A Brilliantly Crafted Memoir, an Unforgettable Story
Review: Walter de Milly's story isn't necessarily more horrific than other survivors of incest. But the depth of his understanding of what he went through and his prodigious talents as a writer combine to make me feel that this slender volume may simply be the ultimate incest survivor story, that it couldn't possible get any better than this. With his measured, nearly dreamlike voice, deMilly takes us back to the 60's South and to the family bombshelter where the sexual abuse began in earnest, allowing the reader inside the mind and soul of a young boy who is now locked in anguished sexual conflict with his handsome and smiling father. From this chilling opening, the writer unfolds his story of pain and gut determination to survive, creating unforgettable portraits of the people and events around him. One comes away from "In my Father's Arms" with the feeling of having just encountered an instant classic.
Rating: 
Summary: An Enlightening Memoir
Review: While novels reflect the human condition and provide the reader with vicarious experiences, biography brings life itself to the printed page. Autobiography and memoirs are especially intriguing, despite the fact that the author only reveals those aspects of his life that he chooses to share with others. Autobiography and memoirs most often provide a catharsis for the author. The writer relives his experiences by sharing them with his readers. The memoirist enhances the understanding of human psychology through sharing experiences with others, while he views himself simultaneously. deMilly's work, which would not have been published a few decades ago, deals candidly with the subjects of incest and pedophilia. It is no wonder that the author experiences multiple personality syndrome at the hands of a father whose pedophilia extends to his own son. In graphic detail, deMilly spells out the ordeal of a child who knows intrinsically that something terribly wrong is happening - yet he cannot tell it to anyone. With the onset of adolescence, deMilly's problems are compounded by his own emerging sexual preference - which he cannot fathom. Could it be that his homosexuality is attributable to the sexual abuse from his parent? Psychotherapy does not provide satisfactory answers or solutions. deMilly has written a brave memoir, a testament to the strength of the human spirit to survive successfully in society. His work is a positive addition to the expanding discipline of gay and lesbian studies.
Rating:
Summary: An Enlightening Memoir
Review: While novels reflect the human condition and provide the reader with vicarious experiences, biography brings life itself to the printed page. Autobiography and memoirs are especially intriguing, despite the fact that the author only reveals those aspects of his life that he chooses to share with others. Autobiography and memoirs most often provide a catharsis for the author. The writer relives his experiences by sharing them with his readers. The memoirist enhances the understanding of human psychology through sharing experiences with others, while he views himself simultaneously. deMilly's work, which would not have been published a few decades ago, deals candidly with the subjects of incest and pedophilia. It is no wonder that the author experiences multiple personality syndrome at the hands of a father whose pedophilia extends to his own son. In graphic detail, deMilly spells out the ordeal of a child who knows intrinsically that something terribly wrong is happening - yet he cannot tell it to anyone. With the onset of adolescence, deMilly's problems are compounded by his own emerging sexual preference - which he cannot fathom. Could it be that his homosexuality is attributable to the sexual abuse from his parent? Psychotherapy does not provide satisfactory answers or solutions. deMilly has written a brave memoir, a testament to the strength of the human spirit to survive successfully in society. His work is a positive addition to the expanding discipline of gay and lesbian studies.
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