Catherine Gildiner

Well, After the Falls was just as addicting as the first. For many reasons (Cathy being one of them) she and her family have left Lewison and relocated to Buffalo, NY. The suburb they settle in is completely different than the small town atmosphere of their former home. The house is smaller, her mother no longer has her social clubs and church and her research seems to no longer interest her. Her father is no longer a front line pharmacist and seems to miss the respect that went with his show more former position in Lewiston. Everything has changed....

Cathy analyzes the lay of the land and plots her plan to fit in - becoming a cheerleader, buying the right clothes, borrowing the family car late at night etc. But 'fitting in' is not in her nature. Although her parents have moved to the Amherst subdivision so that she can be enrolled in a well thought of academic high school, academics aren't a priority.

"My father never said a word about my dismal school record in terms of scholastics or behaviour. He never mentioned the call from the guidance counsellor, Mr. Myshenko, who'd said I was a 'born leader who had gone astray.' I only found out about it when he threatened to call Dad again. When I asked Mr. Myshenko why he had called my father instead of my mother, he said that whenever they called my home and asked the woman who answered if she was the mother of Cathy McClure, she said no."

Cathy is still questioning why things are and what she can do to change them. Having worked so closely with Roy, the black delivery driver for most of her childhood, Cathy is stunned when racism openly appears in her new surroundings. One response? The Black Lawn Jockey Elimination squadron is born. The drive for social justice continues when Cathy attends Ohio University. It is the 60's and the civil rights movement is in full swing. Cathy falls in love with a young black poet and together they become deeply involved in the fight for equality. She also discovers the joy in learning, finally embracing academics.

After the Falls focuses on much of the turbulent 1960's - civil rights, war, sex, drugs and politics, But, Cathy's relationship with her father plays an integral part of her life during this period. Since the move from Lewiston, their interactions have been adversarial. When her father falls ill, she is forced to re evaluate their relationship.

After the Falls is darker than Too Close to the Falls, dealing with heavier issues. Some of them are disturbing, but all are thought provoking, handled with humour, candor and openness. Gildiner paints a picture of a turbulent time in history as well as allowing us to share in her coming of age during this time. Her writing style is effortless, almost reading as fiction. Highly, highly recommended. I can't wait to read the third memoir. show less

An interesting book that sheds the light on what the most damaged of us can do to those they are supposed to protect and love.

These are five horrible stories. I've lived long enough to understand that everyone that gets on this ride of life generally experiences some of the shit laid out in this book, though, thankfully, to a much lesser degree. I have personally dealt with caregivers and siblings and their personalities warped by alcoholism, drugs, sexual addiction, and psychopathy. I've show more experienced violence, mental abuse, and abandonment.

And, thankfully, I've also had the help of a good therapist along the way. So, for someone to be able to take on these people in all their broken tragedy and lead them through all the horrible things in their lives, staring at it wide-eyed and unblinkingly, and mapping a path out of that hell?

Yeah, that's powerful. So are these stories.

Interestingly, the one thing I found a touch off-putting was Gildiner's narrative voice, but I think she had to write in a more dispassionate, emotionally removed tone than I'm used to.

Regardless, this is an important insight into the unseen burdens we all carry around with us. When you encounter that person and casually label them an "asshole" (as, I shamefully admit, I do far too often), it's good to remember that most of these patients were likely considered assholes by those around them due strictly to their survival behaviours.

If, for nothing else, this book helps you see others in a different light, it's worth the read. show less

An exceptional clear-eyed report on the psychoanalytic process from a skilled and compassionate doctor drawing from a lifetime of work. In her epilogue Gildiner owns up to choosing patients for whom the process worked and was miraculously transformative (to the extent once can refer changes wrought through years of hard work as "miraculous.") The cases she has chosen are to my mind truly miraculous. All five are quite different in terms of the ways in which the psychological damage show more manifested, but all are very much the same in that they started with mothers largely absent (whether through death, physical abandonment, or emotional abandonment) and fathers cruel or weak or hapless. This is a QAnon dream come true -- child abuse is everywhere, and no one seems to protect the children.

The approach that Dr. Gildiner takes is strict Freudian, which feels quaint at this point since we understand the biology of mental illness so much better 100 years later. Gildiner though makes a solid case for a Freudian approach in at least some cases. Clearly, like cancer or heart disease or many other diseases mental illness usually had both biological and behavioral/environmental causes, and if we just address the biology, we are not treating the whole patient. Gildiner's approach, while it does not account for biology, is intellectual, compassionate, and creative, and provides a path for her patients to do the hard work and reap the benefits of getting better. In these five lives treatment was utterly metamorphic. There are happy(ish) endings to all these stories, and Gildiner is right when she calls these people heroes. show less

I love non-fiction - give me a great memoir or some juicy true crime and I'm a happy woman. I've read some great non-fiction this year and Good Morning, Monster is among the best.

Catherine Gildiner is a therapist who shares "five heroic stories of emotional recovery." There's Laura, a young woman who was abandoned at age nine with two younger siblings in an isolated cottage in the winter; Danny, an indigenous Cree man unable to grieve the loss of his wife and daughter; Peter, a successful show more but lonely musician suffering sexual dysfunction; Alana, a certified genius whose psychopathic father's abuse resulted in a severe personality disorder; and Madeline, a glamorous workaholic whose mother greeted her each morning of her childhood with "Good morning, Monster." Each of these blurbs just scratches the surface of the patients' remarkable stories - the level of trauma each one endured and survived is almost unimaginable.

Beyond the patients' journeys, you also follow Dr. Gildiner's path as a new therapist who has to learn as she goes. When she says psychology is like a mystery novel, it's clearly true - not only is she trying to help her patients find clues as to why they are the way they are, she must also dig for answers on her end, consulting other experts to find the most effective therapy for each person (in a pre-Internet age!). It's a riveting look at how a doctor works with her patients and what role psychology and therapy can play in changing people's lives.

If you loved Maybe You Should Talk to Someone by Lori Gottlieb (I did!) or if you want to read truly amazing stories about the perseverance and resilience of people who've endured tragic things, pick up Good Morning, Monster. Be warned - it's not easy to read but I couldn't put it down. There were times this book broke my heart but it left me feeling nothing but hope.

Thank you to NetGalley, St. Martin's Press & the author for an advanced copy to review. show less