Last Book Read

My last read was "Fourteen: Growing Up Alone In A Crowd," by Stephen Zanichkowsky. It was a disturbing book to say the least, and maybe the best I have read this year.

He tells about his family of fourteen kids brought up by zealous Catholic parents, zealous but for always omitting the part about being kind to others and loving your neighbor (not to mention your kids).

You see, dear old Mom & Dad used a bed slat on their kids, and viciously. The author makes the beatings vivid for us, and we see how the dread of them was almost as bad as were the beatings themselves. All this corporal punishment (and this seems a euphemism) led to was a dysfunctional family, the kids of which largely hating their father, their mother too, though to less a degree, because they could sympathize with her, knowing she had spent 144[!] months of her life pregnant and was ultimately worn out by being a mother.

Also, the author delves into his own psyche; for instance, going into lurid detail about his desires for his sisters growing up, having many flavors to choose from among them.

It's all very interesting, and the author never comes across to me as a whiner, but rather as a boy, then a young man, just trying to understand why his parents never loved him. Great book. Get your own copy

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