Lies My Mother Never Told Me

作者:Jones, Kaylie

页数:384

出版时间:2009-9

价格:$ 25.99

isbn号码:9780061778704

具体描述

Her mother was a brainy knockout with the sultry beauty of Marilyn Monroe, a raconteur whose fierce wit could shock an audience into hilarity or silence. Her father was a distinguished figure in American letters, the National Book Awardwinning author of four of the greatest novels of World War II ever written. A daughter of privilege with a seemingly fairy-tale-like life, Kaylie Jones was raised in the Hamptons via France in the 1960s and '70s, surrounded by the glitterati who orbited her famous father, James Jones. Legendary for their hospitality, her handsome, celebrated parents held court in their home around an antique bar—an eighteenth-century wooden pulpit taken from a French village church—playing host to writers, actors, movie stars, film directors, socialites, diplomats, an emperor, and even the occasional spy. Kaylie grew up amid such family friends as William Styron, Irwin Shaw, James Baldwin, and Willie Morris, and socialized with the likes of Truman Capote, Norman Mailer, George Plimpton, and Kurt Vonnegut. Her beloved father showed young Kaylie the value of humility, hard work, and education, with its power to overcome ignorance, intolerance, and narrow-mindedness, and instilled in her a love of books and knowledge. From her mother, Gloria, she learned perfect posture, the twist, the fear of abandonment, and soul-shattering cruelty. Two constants defined Kaylie's childhood: literature and alcohol. "Only one word was whispered in the house, as if it were the worst insult you could call someone," she writes, "alcoholic was a word my parents reserved for the most appalling and shameful cases—drunks who made public scenes or tried to kill themselves or ended up in the street or in an institution. If you could hold your liquor and go to work, you were definitely not an alcoholic." When her father died from heart failure complicated by years of drinking, sixteen-year-old Kaylie was broken and lost. For solace she turned to his work, looking beyond the man she worshipped to discover the artist and his craft, determined that she too would write. Her loss also left her powerless to withstand her mother's withering barbs and shattering criticism, or halt Gloria's further descent into a bottle—one of the few things mother and daughter shared. From adolescence, Kaylie too used drink as a refuge, a way to anesthetize her sadness, anger, and terror. For years after her father's death, she denied the blackouts, the hangovers, the lost days, the rage, the depression. Broken and bereft, she began reading her father's novels and those writers who came before and after him—and also pursued her own writing. With this, she found the courage to open the door on the truth of her own addiction. Lies My Mother Never Told Me is the mesmerizing and luminously told story of Kaylie's battle with alcoholism and her struggle to flourish despite the looming shadow of a famous father and an emotionally abusive and damaged mother. Deeply intimate, brutally honest, yet limned by humor and grace, it is a beautifully written tale of personal evolution, family secrets, second chances, and one determined woman's journey to find her own voice—and the courage to embrace a life filled with possibility, strength, and love.

用户评价

如果用一个词来形容这本书给我的感受，那会是“回味悠长”。这不是那种读完立刻丢到一边，只留下模糊印象的故事。相反，它像一坛陈年的老酒，初尝时或许平淡无奇，但随着时间的推移，那种醇厚的后劲会慢慢在心头散发开来。我发现，即使在读完好几天之后，书中的某些场景或对话仍然会毫无预警地跳入我的脑海，引发我新一轮的思考。这种持久的影响力，源于作者对人性中那些永恒主题的深刻洞察——关于信任的脆弱、家庭关系的复杂性以及个体在成长过程中不得不做出的取舍。它没有提供廉价的答案或简单的道德判断，而是将问题抛给了读者，迫使我们直面人性的灰色地带。这本书的价值在于，它成功地超越了故事本身，成为了一次深刻的自我反思的机会。

这本书的叙事手法实在太引人入胜了，作者仿佛拥有一种魔力，能将那些看似日常的片段编织成一张复杂而迷人的情感网络。我尤其欣赏她在刻画人物内心挣扎时的那种细腻入微，没有夸张的戏剧冲突，却处处透露着生活的真实重量。你会感觉自己不是在阅读一个故事，而是在偷窥一段真实的人生，那些潜藏在沉默之下的渴望、遗憾与和解，都随着文字的流动缓缓浮现。主角在面对困境时的那种犹豫和最终的爆发点，处理得极其自然流畅，让人不由得在脑海中不断重演那些关键的转折点，思考“如果是我，我会怎么做？”这本书的节奏掌控得非常好，它不像那些情节驱动型的小说那样急于推进，而是耐心地打磨着每一个情绪的层次，让你在不经意间被深深地代入角色的处境，感同身受地体会那种隐忍与释然交织的复杂滋味。读完合上书本的那一刻，房间里的空气似乎都凝固了，留下的只有挥之不去的回响，久久不能平息。

我得说，作者对社会背景的描摹达到了教科书级别的精准。她没有使用冗长乏味的背景介绍，而是巧妙地将时代洪流的暗涌融入到人物的日常对话和生活细节之中。那种特定的年代气息、地域的特有风貌，甚至是特定群体内部微妙的权力动态，都被她不动声色地展现出来。这种“润物细无声”的写作技巧，使得整个故事的基调异常扎实可信，仿佛我能闻到书中描绘的街道上散发出的气味，感受到那种特有的年代感带来的压抑或自由。特别是对于一些边缘化的群体的刻画，作者展现了罕见的洞察力和同理心，她笔下的人物，无论多么有缺陷，都带着一种不容置疑的人性光辉或深刻的悲剧色彩。这本书的格局显然不止于个人情感纠葛，它更像是一面镜子，反射出特定社会环境下，个体在结构性压力下如何挣扎求存、最终找到自我定位的艰难历程。读完后，我对那个时代有了更深层次的理解，绝非教科书上的冰冷文字可比。

这本书的语言风格简直是一股清流，那种克制而又极富张力的文字表达，让人不得不一再品味那些句子。它不是那种华丽辞藻堆砌的文字，而是经过千锤百炼、去芜存菁后的精华。你会发现，很多重要的情感转折点，仅仅是通过一个精心挑选的动词或者一个精准的形容词就完成了，这种“少即是多”的艺术处理，极大地增强了文本的力量。我发现自己忍不住会停下来，对着某些段落反复阅读，试图解析其中蕴含的深层含义。它不像某些畅销书那样追求短平快，而是更像是一首精心谱写的乐章，有高亢激昂的变奏，也有低回婉转的休止符。这种对语言的敬畏感，使得阅读过程本身变成了一种享受，一种与文字作者之间的默契交流，仿佛我们都在一个只有我们能听懂的频率上共振，共同探索语言的边界和情感的深度。

坦白讲，这本书的结构设计非常大胆，它挑战了传统叙事的时间线索，在不同的时间点之间进行了穿梭和跳跃，但令人惊奇的是，这种跳跃非但没有造成阅读上的困惑，反而像是在拼凑一个复杂的、被打碎的瓷器，每读完一个片段，我就离完整的画面更近一步。作者似乎非常擅长使用“留白”，她不会把所有信息一次性给出，而是像个高明的魔术师一样，在关键时刻撤走遮挡物，让你自己去填补那些缺失的逻辑和情感的断裂。这种互动性极强的阅读体验，极大地激发了我的主动思考能力，我不得不不断地在过去与现在之间建立联系，推断人物的动机和隐藏的秘密。这种智力上的参与感，让这本书的阅读体验远超一般的消遣读物，它更像是一场精心设计的智力迷宫，需要读者全神贯注，才能最终抵达真相的出口。