Vertigo: A Memoir (The Cross-Cultural Memoir Series)

Born to immigrant parents during World War II and coming of age during the 1950s, DeSalvo finds herself rebelling against a script written by parental and societal expectations. In her revealing family memoir, DeSalvo sifts through painful memories to give voice to all that remained unspoken and unresolved in her life: a mother's psychotic depression, a father's rage and violent rigidity, a sister's early depression and eventual suicide, and emerging memories of childhood incest. At times humorous and often brutally candid, DeSalvo also delves through the more recent conflicts posed by marriage, motherhood, and the crisis that started her on the path of her life's work: becoming a writer in order to excavate the meaning of her life and community.In __Vertigo__, Louise DeSalvo paints a striking picture of the easy freedom of the husband and fatherless world of working-class Hoboken, New Jersey, the neighborhood of her early childhood, where mothers and children had an unaccustomed say in the running of their lives while men were off defending their country, but were jolted back into submission when World War II ended. Hoboken was not a place where girls were encouraged to develop their minds, or their independent spirits, yet it is that tenement-dotted city with its pulse and energy, wonderful Italian pastry, and sidewalk roller-skating contests, and not suburban Ridgefield, where the family moves when Louise is seven, that claims Louise’s heart.Written with an honesty that is as rare as it is unsettling, __Vertigo__ also speaks to broader truths about the impact of ethnicity, class, and gender in American life. Offering inspiration and a healthy dose of subversion, this personal story of a writer’s life is also a study of the alchemy between lived experience and creativity, and the life-transforming possibilities of this process. Born to immigrant parents during World War II and coming of age during the 1950s, DeSalvo finds herself rebelling against a script written by parental and societal expectations. In her revealing family memoir, DeSalvo sifts through painful memories to give voice to all that remained unspoken and unresolved in her life: a mother's psychotic depression, a father's rage and violent rigidity, a sister's early depression and eventual suicide, and emerging memories of childhood incest. At times humorous and often brutally candid, DeSalvo also delves through the more recent conflicts posed by marriage, motherhood, and the crisis that started her on the path of her life's work: becoming a writer in order to excavate the meaning of her life and community. In Vertigo , Louise DeSalvo paints a striking picture of the easy freedom of the husband and fatherless world of working-class Hoboken, New Jersey, the neighborhood of her early childhood, where mothers and children had an unaccustomed say in the running of their lives while men were off defending their country, but were jolted back into submission when World War II ended. Hoboken was not a place where girls were encouraged to develop their minds, or their independent spirits, yet it is that tenement-dotted city with its pulse and energy, wonderful Italian pastry, and sidewalk roller-skating contests, and not suburban Ridgefield, where the family moves when Louise is seven, that claims Louise’s heart. Written with an honesty that is as rare as it is unsettling, Vertigo also speaks to broader truths about the impact of ethnicity, class, and gender in American life. Offering inspiration and a healthy dose of subversion, this personal story of a writer’s life is also a study of the alchemy between lived experience and creativity, and the life-transforming possibilities of this process.

Grippingabout how 'a working-class Italian American girl' became a critic and writer.—Kirkus Reviews

Publishers Weekly

DeSalvo (Conceived with Malice) frankly, and wisely, states that her memories of how she grew from a working-class, Italian American child in Hoboken to become a Virginia Woolf scholar may not be accurate because memory cannot always be trusted. This account, with its emphasis on her early years, is the way it seems to her to have been. Her happiest time, she claims, was during WWII, when the world as she saw it was composed only of women and children (she was only three at the war's end). Then the men returned and life became grim. Later her mother became depressed and was institutionalized, her sister committed suicide, she herself was sexually abused by a female family member. Books and the public library were her refuge. In hindsight she finds parallels between her life and Virginia Woolf's that might escape a casual reader. She also sees them in Alfred Hitchcock's Vertigo, which she saw 11 times in one week when she was 15. A more exuberant period came in suburban Ridgefield, N.J., during what she calls her boy crazy period: "I have, in quick succession, `dated' the entire starting line up of my high school's basketball team... many of its football players, all the baseball infielders, and a few wrestlers." DeSalvo clearly has a sense of humor, and although her success in lifeshe repeatedly stresses the problems of being Italian, working class and a "girl"may not be as unique as she seems to think, her clarity of insight and expression makes this an impressive achievement. (Aug.)

A scholar's memoir of growing up and the powerful forces that shaped her as a woman and a writer; “her story will inspire all women” (Library Journal). In this honest and outspoken reflection on her childhood, Louise DeSalvo explores the many ways literature saved her, both emotionally and practically. Born to Italian immigrants during World War II, DeSalvo takes readers back to the emotional chaos of her 1950s girlhood in New Jersey, growing up with her authoritative, distant father, her depressed mother, and a sister who later committed suicide. Reading and research were an anchor to her then, and widened her choices about her future in ways that weren't otherwise available to girls of that era. A Virginia Woolf scholar, DeSalvo wrote a ground-breaking study on the impact of childhood sexual abuse on the reclusive writer. Here, she mines her own early days—and her adolescent obsession with Hitchcock's Vertigo—in an attempt to give her own life's path “some shape, some order.” Publisher's Weekly said, “Her clarity of insight and expression make this [memoir] an impressive achievement,” and the San Francisco Chronicle proclaimed, “DeSalvo has one of the most refreshing feminist voices around.” A scholars memoir of growing up and the powerful forces that shaped her as a woman and a writer; her story will inspire all women ( Library Journal ). In this honest and outspoken reflection on her childhood, Louise DeSalvo explores the many ways literature saved her, both emotionally and practically. Born to Italian immigrants during World War II, DeSalvo takes readers back to the emotional chaos of her 1950s girlhood in New Jersey, growing up with her authoritative, distant father, her depressed mother, and a sister who later committed suicide. Reading and research were an anchor to her then, and widened her choices about her future in ways that werent otherwise available to girls of that era. A Virginia Woolf scholar, DeSalvo wrote a ground-breaking study on the impact of childhood sexual abuse on the reclusive writer. Here, she mines her own early daysand her adolescent obsession with Hitchcocks Vertigo in an attempt to give her own lifes path some shape, some order. Publishers Weekly said, Her clarity of insight and expression make this [memoir] an impressive achievement, and the San Francisco Chronicle proclaimed, DeSalvo has one of the most refreshing feminist voices around. This widely acclaimed memoir is a vivid account of a young Italian American girl's struggle to transcend the limits imposed on her life and documents the making of a working-class writer and scholar