Scrap: Salvaging a Family
A Memoir in Flash by Luanne Castle
The hybrid flash memoir Scrap: Salvaging a Family explores the stain of childhood fear and anxiety on the adult spirit and the experience of reconciling with an aging or dying parent.
A daughter has grown up in a household with an angry and abusive father. He keeps the secret of his biological father’s identity from his daughter for decades.
When the elderly man faces his mortality, he finally names his father. The more the daughter learns about her father’s early life and origins, the more she understands him which leads to forgiveness for the past.
My thoughts: The author’s immigrant grandmother gave birth to three children, all illegitimate. Their birth father, a respected man by the community, had another legitimate family. One of the sons was the father of the author, an unpredictable, frightening, and sometimes violent man who often took out his rage on Luanne, his only daughter. What a complicated childhood, one without answers.
Those answers finally seeped out later in life, with both father and daughter attempting to make sense of the complicated scraps of their shared past. The author bravely gives glimpses of early years, therapy years, and later years with candor and compassion, and amazing resilience.
Luanne Castle
Luanne has been a Fellow at the Center for Ideas and Society at the University of California, Riverside. she studied English and Creative Writing at the University of California, Riverside (PhD); Western Michigan University (MFA); and Stanford University (Certificate). Luanne lives with her husband and three cats in Arizona along a wash that wildlife use as a thoroughfare. Visit her online here.
On her website, you may notice one book of hers that I’ve shared before. Her Kintypes was an early inspiration for Meadowlark Songs.
Scrap: Salvaging a Family may be ordered from Amazon.com
Also Amazon.uk
Looking forward to reading, Joy! Thank you! ❤️😉❤️
Thank you, Vicki. You’ll be amazed at the way it’s written, but it’s also another way to process growing up with a difficult parent. . .
Appreciate you! ❤️😉❤️
Thank you for your interest, Joy! Many blessings.
Thanks for reviewing Luanne Castles’ flash memoir, Joy. The structure of her family is complicated. I read it three times! So, writing this book could not have been easy. God bless Luanne’s forgiving heart. 😁
Thank you, Nancy. She said it took her a dozen years, but even back then it had a title. Yes, bless her forgiving heart!
Thank you so much, Nancy. My writer’s heart is happy.
I’m pleased to hear that. Good luck to you, Luanne! 😁📚
This sounds like one of those ‘difficult’ reads that one really appreciates fully at the end. I will look out for it 🙂
It sure is, Anne. I appreciated how she wrote it, one scrap at a time. Just about enough to get the gist of what happened. Thank you for your note.
Thank you, Anne! I am so glad you are interested in my book!
Sounds like an interesting book with lots of obstacles to overcome.
Thank you, KMB. It’s amazing what people survive through, eventually coming to a graciousness about it and even forgiveness.
Thank you so much, atimetoshare. Obstacles, yes, and a path to forgiveness.
[…] JOY NEAL KIDNEY […]
Joy, I can’t tell you how grateful I am to you. Thank you so much for your wonderful review and for starting off the blog tour!!! xoxo
You are so welcome, Luanne. I hope you’re heartened by early comments. I am as well!
I am, Joy. After 18 years of working on this book, it’s gratifying to get it into readers’ hands and have them find it moving.
Can’t wait to read this!
Amy, thank you. It’s a compelling story written in a way that reflects what Luanne experienced.
Amy, I can’t wait for you to read it! Hope the book makes its way to you sooner rather than later!
Excellent review, Joy. Congratulations to Luanne.
Thanks so much, John!
Thank you so much, John! I’m looking forward to visiting your blog next week!
Congratulations to Luanne on the great review! I highly recommend Scrap as well. It’s a remarkable achievement. Sharing.
Thank you, Liz!
You’re welcome, Joy!
Liz, thank you so much. Makes me feel the process has all been worth it. See you in a couple of days!
You’re welcome, Luanne!
Thoughtful review, Joy! I look forward to holding Luanne’s “Scrap” in my hands.💐
Thank you, Jeannie!
Thanks so much! for everything.
You are so welcome, Luanne!
Looking forward to reading it! 😊
Thank you, Merril.
Thanks for your great review of this fascinating book, Joy.
You bet, Tim!