Fathers And Sons | |
Auhtor: Ivan Sergeyevich Turgenev | |
| Language: english Published: 1862 Genres:fictionDownloads: 378 eBook size: 507Kb Review by O. Brown, January 2005 Rating: (***) Copyright: Public Domain in the U.S. Please check the copyright status in your country. | |
Summary of the Book 'Fathers And Sons':
Beautiful Boy: A Fathers Journey Through His Sons Addiction is a best-selling memoir by David Sheff that describes how his family dealt with his son Nics methamphetamine addiction. It was published by Houghton Mifflin on April 26 2008. The book grew out of the article My Addicted Son that Sheff had written for The New York Times Magazine in 2005. Son Nic Sheffs perspective was told in his own memoir Tweak published concurrently by an imprint of Simon and Schuster. Beautiful Boy covers a substantial portion of Nics life and deals with the elder Sheffs struggles of how to respond to a son who he loves but who is also a danger to his family. Nic steals money from his younger siblings and gets arrested for possession in front of them and Sheff is forced to install a security system to prevent Nic from breaking in. Nic attends many rehabs throughout the memoir and even with those he relapses many times. The longest stretch of sobriety Nic had prior to his last relapse in the memoir was almost two years. He then relapsed once again and went into treatment. By the end of the memoir Sheff tells us that Nic has been sober one year. He hopes with all his heart that this will be the last time and believes in him once again. But in his mind he knows that a relapse can easily happen again and that it will be very difficult for Nic his family and himself. Another theme throughout the memoir is Sheff wondering about how much he is to blame and what he could have done to prevent his sons addiction. Throughout the memoir Sheff attends numerous Al-Anon Meetings and therapy sessions. In these different sessions he is continually told of the three Cs you didnt cause it you cant control it and you cant cure it. Sheff has a difficult time accepting these statements throughout the memoir. At the end however he says that he has come to accept two of the Cs that he cant control it and he cant cure it. He realizes that he has done everying he can do to try and help Nic and knows that its up to Nic to figure things out. He realizes that the only way Nic will fully recover is if he figures things out himself. Beautiful Boy became a critical and commercial success. It hit 1 on the New York Times Best Seller List on April 6 2008 and again on May 4 2008. Entertainment Weekly named it the 1 Best Nonfiction Book of 2008 and it won the Barnes and Noble Discover Great New Writers Award for nonfiction in 2008. Amazon. com selected it as one of the Best Books of 2008 and Starbucks picked it as one of the few books it would sell in its coffee shops.
Excerpts from the Book 'Fathers And Sons':
... to strike you with a special ??? ??² ??°Really, Daddy, it makes absolutely no difference where a person is born.??² ??°Still ??? ??² ??°No, it makes ...
... Nikolai Petrovich had also awakened and had gone to see Arkady, whom he found dressed. Father and son went out on to the terrace under ...
... to him,??² remarked Arkady. ??°You hurt his feelings.??² ??°Well, am I to humor them, these provincial aristocrats? Why, it???s all personal vanity, ...
... right, too,??² interposed Bazarov. ??°Well, no, I don???t think so.??² ??°I suppose an extra little heir is not to your liking.??² ??°You ...
... not so few as you suppose.??² ??°What? You seriously suppose you can set yourself up against a whole people???² ??°All Moscow was burnt down, you know, ...
... a young man not to dance. Of course I don???t say that because of any old conventions I would never suggest that a man???s wit lies in his feet, but ...
... courteous sympathy, slowly opening and closing her fan. The conversation was broken off when her partners claimed her Sitnikov, among others, asked ...
... her, and no one would have accused Bazarov of being commonplace. Arkady had several surprises in store for him that day. He had expected that Bazarov ...
... to Anna Sergeyevna. Her manner was such that people never hesitated to say what they thought in front of her. She heard him out, and then remarked, ...
... to feel both frightened and sorry for him. ??°Evgeny Vassilich???? ,??² she murmured, and her voice rang with unconscious tenderness. He quickly ...
... under his breath at the shaft horse for ??°kicking with her headpiece,??² by which he meant, jerking her head. ??°Yes, yes,??² began Bazarov, ??°it???s ...
... contented and even blissful face talked about the grave anxieties he had felt about Napoleon???s policy and the complications of the Italian question. ...
... advance,??² he said, ??°that you were above all such prejudices. Here am I, an old man of sixty-two, and even I have none.??² (Vassily Ivanovich dared ...
... who stopped in front of every inn and exclaimed, ??°A drink???² or ??°What about a drink???² but, to make up for that, after the drink he did not spare ...
... she said at length, and bending over the bench she began to pick out some roses. ??°Which will you have ??? a red or a white one???² ??°Red, and ...
... whom indeed! Well, what about that gentleman who has just gone away from here???² Fenichka got up. ??°My God, Pavel Petrovich, why are you torturing ...
... call them???? Well, he shall be at my feet.??² But a feeling of shame came over her at once, and she ran swiftly upstairs. Arkady was going along the ...
... sing-song voice ??°and over against our ???world??? we know there???s the master???s will, because you are our fathers. And the stricter the master???s ...
... he did not sleep and what trouble had come over him. For two whole days he held firm, though he did not at all like the look of his son, whom he ...
... her glove and breathing apprehensively. ??°You will forget me,??² he began again. ??°The dead is no companion for the living. My father will tell you ...