BOOK REVIEW: Living in the Land of Limbo

Living in the Land of Limbo: Fiction and Poetry about Family Caregiving

This anthology was like a big hug from a friend you haven't seen in forever. 

The stories, made me laugh, nod my head and cry at some emotionally harrowing pieces. 

We get a small glimpse through each lens of caring. 

The stories and poetry are so well written, so beautiful.

I could probably write one of these stories myself.  

I remembered looking at the back of the book and seeing the list of great authors included in this compilation. I imagined my name being in the middle of them all and my heart skipped a beat! 

My favorite quotes: 

"He had imagined she could be different if she wanted to. Which had angered him. Which was not, was almost never, the truth about things."  

"In a way, the bad nights were easier. The good nights made her remember. The good nights disarmed her."

"How can it be described? How can any of it be described? The trip and the story of the trip are always two different things. The narrator is the one who has stayed home... All that unsayable life! That's where the narrator comes in. "

"Valerie is saint, but her voice is the standard hospital saint voice: an infuriating, pharmaceutical calm. It says, Everything is normal here. Death is normal. Pain is normal. Nothing is abnormal. So there is nothing to get excited about."

"No one but Evelyn knew anymore what Lily used to be. No one else knew the record and the history of her brilliant life - all her accomplishments, playing the piano and swimming, all her days. They lasted only in Evelyn's memory."

"...the members of our family had few friends outside of each other, and their relationships with each other were often destructive. It was a family of controlling women and passive men. The women consumed their sons and alienated their daughters. It wasn't that they didn't love us. It was only that love was encased in a kernel of warped emotions. The result was a family afflicted with astigmatism of the mind's eye, which perceived a world of distorted images. This was the world of our childhood."