Without a Map: A Memoir by Meredith Hall
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Book Reviews of Without a Map: A Memoir
Book Review: Memoir Through Whirligig Eyes
Summary: 5 Stars
Meredith Hall writes "The whirligig [water bug] can synthesize these two distinct realms [above and below the water's surface], creating a cohesive picture of the world above and the world below. I've always envied this ability. Imagine being able to see what is before you and at the same time what lies beneath the surface, the obscured, the unannounced, the threatening.
"I wish that I had had these eyes, had been able to see both realms: what was at the surface and what might lie below, the warning signs. At sixteen I'd held only one view: my mother loved me."
Like Hall, most people have to have the wind knocked out of them before they change their worldview. The lucky ones have someone who comforts them until they're able to breathe again.
Hall isn't lucky...when she is sixteen. She's seduced by an older boy's attention, gets pregnant, and is rejected by her parents, whose worldview won't allow them to do anything else. A girl who gets herself pregnant even their girl)is forever trash. Their family doctor agrees with them. He tells Hall "Don't try to tell me who the father of this baby is. I know you have no idea. Girls like you never do."
How many girls have heard this? How many will hear this?
Age, distance, and writing talent have permitted Meredith Hall to examine her life from above and below, and then relate what she believes contributed to the way she was treated and her inability to change the course of events. It's not all her mother's fault, her father's fault, her own fault, or even society's fault. It's more complicated than simple blame.
Perhaps her readers will borrow her whirligig eyes to look at the lives of people they know. Perhaps their new understanding will breed compassion.
Note: I wouldn't change a word of this memoir.
Book Review: A Poetic Rendering of Profound Grief and Alienation
Summary: 5 Stars
This is a deep, insightful and poignant memoir. Meredith Hall candidly looks back at her adolescence, the painful time that shaped her young adulthood and created a sense of deep existential angst, alienaton from society, and the inability to form intimate relationships with others.
At 16 years of age, Ms. Hall had a child which she gave up for adoption. At the same time, she was no longer permitted to live with her mother and had to move to her father's home where she endured the cold judgment of a passive father and a condemning stepmother. Ms. Hall's live became shame-based and filled with grief. Her days and months were measured by how old her child would be at that time along with her feelings of being an outcast with no place of rest.
As Roethke said "What is madness but nobility of the soul at odds with circumstance." I believe that this quote describes Ms. Hall's situation. She writes a chapter about walking/wandering throughout Europe and Asia - - just walking to try and walk off the shame, grief, dissociation, and displacement. She can not connect with anyone, including herself.
Over time, as Ms. Hall grows into adulthood, she is able to come to terms with her situation, accept her grief and live her life. She has children of her own and meets the son she gave up for adoption. The book describes their relationship. It also describes the difficult and strained relationships that the author has with her parents and siblings throughout her life.
The contents of this book read like poetry. The profound sadness and grief are poetic in their rendering and I was tearful at many points in this beautifully written book. I can not give it a high enough recommendation. The chapter about Ms. Hall's wandering in Europe and Asia is one of the best pieces of writing that I have ever read.
Book Review: A truly "examined life" - Bravo!
Summary: 5 Stars
Wow! And that's a very soft wow, filled with wonderment at this book so bursting with truth and filled with pain, anger and forgiveness. On the surface, this could simply be viewed as a book about a woman who got pregnant at sixteen, gave up her baby, and had a very difficult time of things for the next twenty-five years or more. But, if you dig just a ltlle deeper, this is simply a story of what it means to be fully human, to live a life warts and all and finally try to understand what it all means. Meredith Hall does all this in her wonderful memoir,Without a Map. She presents herself as child, as daughter, as a mother. This is a truly "examined life," and anyone who reads it will relate and will feel richer for having read Hall's story. Here is a tiny sample of what glitters in this story, something that, when I read it, I recognized, as will anyone who has ever lost a parent without having the chance to verify something - that love went both ways. She speaks of a meeting with her father.
"He is eighty-four years old. I have a startling need to unburden my father of whatever guilt or regret he may carry, to say good-bye to him, to tell him I love him. I am afraid that he will die and I will be left with the unending conversation that has hung in the lost time between us all these years. There are many, many things I wish I could say to him ..."
Hall got to have that conversation, the one I never did have with my father. When I read these lines - and others - I wept. For this is a book about family ties - the ones that held and the ones that didn't. It will make you weep. This is a beautiful book, by a woman who has learned things about life the hard way. If Meredith Hall never writes another book, she will be remembered. This one is enough. - Tim Bazzett, author of SOLDIER BOY: AT PLAY IN THE ASA
Book Review: Without A Map
Summary: 5 Stars
I love the way this book was written. I wanted it to hold my interest ,and it did from the first page.
It caught my eye because I grew up in New Hampshire. The only beach I ever went to as a child was Hampton Beach.
I was surprised to read about the treatment this girl endured from everyone around her.I can remember that way of thinking,but that was extreme.I am so impressed at how strong and forgiving she is.
It's a beautiful story about a wonderful person.
Book Review: Brutally honest
Summary: 5 Stars
Unless you were an unwed, pregnant 16 year old in the 1960's you would not understand, but having been there myself, I consider this the best book on the market about the subject. Meredith Hall is extremely talented, she steps out of the box with this book and takes it up a notch. Being an unwed teen in the 1960's brought shame on your whole family, not just you and I think Meredith Hall got that message across directly and accurately. This is a book I will read again.