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An Abbreviated Life
- A Memoir
- Narrated by: Martha Plimpton
- Length: 5 hrs and 59 mins
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An Abbreviated Life
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Publisher's Summary
A beautiful, startling, and candid memoir about growing up without boundaries, in which Ariel Leve recalls with candor and sensitivity the turbulent time she endured as the only child of an unstable poet for a mother and a beloved but largely absent father, and explores the consequences of a psychologically harrowing childhood as she seeks refuge from the past and recovers what was lost.
Ariel Leve grew up in Manhattan with an eccentric mother she describes as "a poet, an artist, a self-appointed troublemaker and attention seeker". Leve learned to become her own parent, taking care of herself and her mother's needs. There would be uncontrolled, impulsive rages followed by denial, disavowed responsibility, and then extreme outpourings of affection. How does a child learn to feel safe in this topsy-turvy world of conditional love?
Leve captures the chaos and lasting impact of a child's life under siege and explores how the coping mechanisms she developed to survive later incapacitated her as an adult. There were material comforts but no emotional safety except for summer visits to her father's home in Southeast Asia - an escape that was terminated after he attempted to gain custody. Following the death of a loving caretaker, a succession of replacements raised Leve - relationships that resulted in intense attachment and loss. It was not until decades later, when Leve moved to the other side of the world, that she could begin to emancipate herself from the past. In a relationship with a man who had children, caring for them yielded clarity of what was missing.
In telling her haunting story, Leve seeks to understand the effects of chronic psychological maltreatment on a child's developing brain and to discover how to build a life for herself that she never dreamed possible: an unabbreviated life.
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What listeners say about An Abbreviated Life
Average Customer RatingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Delia James
- 08-12-2016
Deeply moving
A page turner read! Beautiful word pictures flow and sweep me away into the writers lived internal world so articulately shared for which I am so grateful for the understanding of narcissism in its ugly bloom!
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Overall2 out of 5 stars
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Performance4 out of 5 stars
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Story3 out of 5 stars
- ELIZABETH
- 20-05-2017
Relentless
What could have made this a 4 or 5-star listening experience for you?
Cutting out the Bali material, and cutting down the NY material.
What was the most interesting aspect of this story? The least interesting?
Most interesting - some of the outrageous acts of Leve's mother.Least interesting - Mario
Which scene did you most enjoy?
Her mother's party when Leve was trying to do her homework
If you could play editor, what scene or scenes would you have cut from An Abbreviated Life?
All the Bali stuff and most of the NY stuff
Any additional comments?
Would you like to hear someone telling you over and over and over again how damaged they were by their outrageous mother? Would you like to find out how wonderful a dropout Italian in Bali can be - someone who reads no books and whose most creative thought is whether the filter in the pond needs changing? If the answer is 'yes' to these questions then this book is for you.
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