Even Dogs Go Home to Die: A Memoir

Rating:
Summary: catptivating
Review: haven't read it yet but can't wait. i actually saw on powells.com this book offered for $8.50 and no special order fee. just an fyi. look forward to an enchanting and engrossing read - it's been awhile...

Rating:
Summary: sharp voice, great story teller
Review: Linda St. John is a wonderful talent and tells her remarkable story of surviving a stark upbringing with wit and insight in the package of a really good read. The story moves along. Her characters are tremendously vivid and orginal.

Rating:
Summary: Good readin' Bad spellin'
Review: Memoirs of a terrible childhood marred by poverty, alcoholism and abuse in Southern Illinois. Later on the abused children look after their dying father, a WWII veteran with a PhD, and seek his love. These terrible childhoods always make good stories when told by their survivors. The worse the childhood the better the story because we know that the writer survived to become a person who could write a book. It's always a question as to how much is true (I've heard that Frank McCourt's mother was a New York secretary) but this one could stand on its own as fiction. We're given a lot of jacket biography, and even a cover designed by the author, that form an intrinsic part of the story. I share the other reviewers' irritation with the apostrophes on the gerunds but I guess them white trash aint gonna mind that none.

Rating:
Summary: nope
Review: read this boys life or bevvy of other books dealing with coming of age in a sincere and relevent manner.

Rating:
Summary: sharp voice, great story teller
Review: The author has taken an artful look at her painful family
background in a way that is amazing. The sincerity and poignant detailing suggest that the author has not borrowed trouble to write about, but does in fact know it very intimately, and has used the power of creativity to rise above and even flourish.
No one can read this book and not be inspired to look with more colorful curiosity at any trouble in their life.
All people in Alcohol and abuse programs would take heart from reading this. This book suggests tools for taking a liberating apprach to life. A beautiful book of love and understanding.

Rating:
Summary: Of Beatings and Beauty
Review: The author has taken an artful look at her painful family
background in a way that is amazing. The sincerity and poignant detailing suggest that the author has not borrowed trouble to write about, but does in fact know it very intimately, and has used the power of creativity to rise above and even flourish.
No one can read this book and not be inspired to look with more colorful curiosity at any trouble in their life.
All people in Alcohol and abuse programs would take heart from reading this. This book suggests tools for taking a liberating apprach to life. A beautiful book of love and understanding.

Rating:
Summary: A Sad book by an even sadder Author
Review: This book is truly sad, not so much the content, but the fact that Miss St. John has never risen above these problems. Instead she likes to wallow in her misery, and use it to get a profit. If she had written a book about coming out of an alcoholic and abusive family on top, with a new knowledge of life and self-worth, it would be an excellent book. But instead she plays a "woe is me" type and is reduced to bashing her siblings, and family, to whom the book is insincerely dedicated. There comes a certain point in peoples life when they should be able to put the past behind them, perhaps someday with some extensive therapy, Miss St. John will be able to as well.

Rating:
Summary: Unusual and memorable
Review: This is a harrowing, yet funny, tale of the author's disturbing childhood. It reminded me of THE LIAR'S CLUB but it's unique not only in the way it's told, but in the voice of the author. What I like best is knowing that the author overcame everything she's written about here to go on to a successful career as an artist. Very inspiring.

Rating:
Summary: If you like listening to people whine. . .
Review: you'll love this book. . .
A long meditative piece on the coming of age of artist Linda St. John this book never really produced a true feeling of empathy from me and instead made me feel I was listening to someone paint a picture of exagerated victimization. Her family is abusive poor white trash but some how it escapes that both her and her father are PhDs. In my opinion most people have messed up families but it takes an artists ego to write an extended whine about it and think that half of america doesn't live some version of that . . .