Linda Gray Sexton

Beautifully written memoir showcasing Linda Sexton's writing talent, perhaps a gift from her mother, the poet Anne Sexton. Linda also inherited her mother's literary estate and had to deal with all of her papers at the end of her life even inexplicably deciding to release her therapy records to her biographer. She called this a "small decision"

Anne went into her therapy determined to work on her unconscious impulses and behaviors and suicidal thoughts. This was all understood to be show more absolutely confidential, inconceivable that it would have been violated. I find it hard to believe that Anne would have wanted her daughter to have known that she ever said that she hated her. Therapy's the place where you can say those forbidden kind of things. So it's the principle that she violated in releasing it but the sole responsibility lies with Dr. Orne, Anne's psychiatrist who violated her rights. Linda insists that because Anne shared so much of herself that she would not have minded and perhaps Linda does know how her mom would feel but still Anne didn't get a say in this. And besides she shared taboo information in her poetry, yes but she turned it into Art and she used metaphor mostly.

Anne went into psychotherapy to dig things up, to work with the unconscious. She was brave and honest in this work that never cured her but only seemed to make her worse. Anne even commented in those records to Orne: "What's the difference if I write poems or talk to you? It's the same thing. The last line of a poem is an insight." Anne's work was her poetry which she defended and would not give up at the expense of better mental health.

Linda gave us the viewpoint of the daughter and what she endured because of Anne's neglect and abuse, even sexual abuse which is difficult to read. It could have been less graphic for my tastes but Anne was exhibitionistic and Linda must have absorbed that trait from her. In Anne's final suicide I feel that there was a self-punishment, a self-hatred which also comes out in her poetry. She did love her daughter and her letters to Linda were beautiful and touching and heartfelt and real.

Anne was real, she had no pretense about her. She claimed she lived her life "to the hilt" despite it all. She died with her boots on, so to speak. When she killed herself she sat in the front seat of her car, Vodka in hand, garage door closed & started the ignition. I wonder if she listened to music? I wonder what her last thoughts were.

"and at the last moment
when death opens the back door
you'll put on your carpet slippers
and stride out."
-"Courage," 1974 show less

Just like her mother before her (the Pulitzer prize winning poet Anne Sexton), Linda Gray Sexton's work explores her deeply personal pain. Linda's memoir tenderly describes what it was like to grow up in the midst of her mother's depression. Her mother's story ends when she ends her own life. However, as she deals with the aftermath of her mother suicide, Linda's struggle with mental illness only then takes root. Despite Linda's best efforts to rage against her mother's legacy and lose her show more pain in work, marriage and motherhood, she eventually succumbs to her own clinical depression and thoughts of suicide.

Linda is both a daughter held hostage by her mothers illness, and a mother holding her family in the grips of her own. Powerful, honest, and disturbing, Half in Love gracefully explores depression and suicide from inside the eye of the storm. show less

Half in Love: Surviving the Legacy of Suicide is Linda Gray Sexton's heartfelt and emotional memoir.
Her mother was famous poet Anne Sexton. Linda is a successful writer herself and the prose in her memoir is achingly beautiful.
Linda's mother Anne suffered from severe depression and as a child she was witness to her mother's mental illness. Linda was twenty one years old in 1974 when her mother committed suicide, after several attempts.
She loved her mother greatly, but Linda swore that she show more would not take on her mother's legacy of suicide and depression. She went on to marry and have children and become a writer. Throughout her life, Linda battled severe depression. As much as she fought it, her depression would return again and again.

Linda's memoir is intensely personal and emotional, and when I was done reading, I almost felt like I wanted to give her a hug. She shares her battle with depression and certain things she talks about are heart wrenching. Her pain comes right off the pages.
I was curious to read Linda's memoir because I wanted to hear her take on suicide and depression. She shares her story here in a brave and insightful way.

Linda describes her suicide attempts as almost being beyond her control. Her depression was something she could not control or will away as much as she tried to.

When Linda describes her first suicide attempt and how she was thinking about how she promised her children she would never do such a thing to herself as her mother had done, she brought tears to my eyes.

After battling years of lingering depression and taking endless medications and going to therapy, Linda comes out a stronger person and gets some closure with her friends and family.

Half in Love: Surviving the Legacy of Suicide is a moving and beautifully written memoir that is not to be missed. show less

This very well-written book documents the dogs who have been a part of the author's life, and describes how each relationship was different. Undoubtedly this author is an expert on the dalmatian breed after owning so many, breeding them, and showing them, and she knows even though they can be rambunctious wanderers, they can also be extremely loving and loyal animals as well. My first pet was a dalmatian who loved nothing more than to get free and run across the very busy street we lived on show more when I was a child, so I was interested in hearing about dogs who had similar personalities as well as dalmatians that didn't feel the need to wander. The pictures included before each chapter are adorable, of course, and show that even though dalmatians all have spots, they definitely do not all look exactly the same. The author was very frank about her own emotional struggles and how having a specific dog would help when she was ailing. She also wrote a lot about the world of show dogs, which I knew very little about and found interesting. She also has bred several of her females in order to create more potential show dogs and also to sell to families as pets, and talks about this extensively as well. I actually learned quite a bit about several things by reading this book and I was also touched emotionally several times. I felt the author was completely authentic and I wish her nothing but the best after reading about her life. Thank you for the First Reads contest copy. show less