Seeking Rapture: A memoir - Softcover

Harrison, Kathryn

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0007143192 ISBN 13: 9780007143191

Publisher: Fourth Estate, 2004

Synopsis

From the bestselling author of THE BINDING CHAIR, this greatly acclaimed and dazzling follow-up to her memoir THE KISS explores the bonds of motherhood between four generations.

When Kathryn Harrison was a little girl, her young mother left her in the care of her British grandmother who was raised in Shanghai. To Kathryn, her mother's mother seemed an almost unimaginably powerful figure: an imperious arbiter of good taste and a master storyteller, who, when coaxed, might reveal stories of a magic and vanished world. She jilted an array of suitable men before concluding that she was not quite modern enough to have a baby without a husband. At the age of 43 she finally married, and the fruit of this union, Harrison's mother, was no more interested than she in being bound by convention. An occasional witness to her daughter's growth to adulthood, she would appear sporadically in film-star clothes and urge unwanted glamour on her shy child. Harrison grew up a spectator of the remarkable, striving to comprehend these women and yet find her own way to live.

In this witty, touching memoir, Harrison writes of the ties that bind mothers to their children – and the forces that can drive them apart. She ponders the legacy of storytelling she inherited from her grandmother, and peers into the deep well of family history from which she draws inspiration for her novels. Reconsidering her past as she watches her own children grow, she recalls the thrilling risk of shoplifting; the longing for perfection that resulted in a fierce eating disorder; the thunderous fights that showed how impossible and how necessary it was to leave home. SEEKING RAPTURE conveys the aching tenderness Harrison feels toward her children, and her awe of their imaginary worlds that no adult can enter. This powerfully evocative book will awaken readers to sift through their own sense of motherhood, loss and regeneration. In prose that sings, SEEKING RAPTURE chronicles the unforgettable episodes that form the drama of domestic life.

About this title

Review:

'Kathryn Harrison has written some of the most daringly, darkly uncompromising books I've read. She explores love, sex, death and their shattering legacies of hate and pain with an honesty that occasionally borders on the masochistic. In some ways this is a book about the pure magic of maternal love. But it's also an examination of the way a human soul can almost be obliterated if deprived of that same love.' Julie Myerson, Daily Telegraph

'In this short memoir she alarmingly graceful lucidity how she survived her mother's emotional neglect. By writing in such unflinching detail about her own and her children's bodies, she is exorcising her old fears and celebrating the physicality of maternal love.' Anne Chisholm, Sunday Telegraph

On Harrison’s first memoir, THE KISS:

'One of the most startling books you are ever likely to read.' Gill Hornby, Observer

'I couldn't stop reading this. I'll never stop remembering it.' Mary Karr, author of The Liar's Club

From the Back Cover:

When Kathryn Harrison was a little girl, her glamorous young mother left her in the care of her British grandmother who was raised in Shanghai.
To Kathryn, her mother's mother seemed almost unimaginably powerful figure: an imperious arbiter of good taste and a master storyteller, who, when coaxed, might reveal stories of a magic and vanished world. She jilted an array of suitable men before concluding that she was not quite modern enough to have a baby without a husband. Her daughter, Harrison's mother, was no more interested than she in being bound by convention. Harrison grew up a spectator of the remarkable, striving to comprehend these women and yet find her own way to live.

In this witty, touching memoir, Harrison writes of the ties that bond mothers to their children – and the forces that can drive them apart. She ponders the legacy of storytelling she inherited from her grandmother, and peers into the deep well of family history from which she draws inspiration for her novels. 'Seeking Rapture' conveys the aching tenderness Harrison feels towards her own children, and her awe of their imaginary worlds that no adult can enter. This powerfully evocative book will awaken readers to sift through their own sense of motherhood, loss and regeneration. In prose that sings, 'Seeking Rapture' chronicles the unforgettable episodes that form the drama of domestic life.

On Harrison's first memoir, 'The Kiss':

"One of the most startling books you are ever likely to read."
GILL HORNBY, 'Observer'

"I couldn't stop reading this. I'll never stop remembering it."
MARK KARR, author of 'The Liar's Club'

"An unforgettable tale, a work of searing honesty, of immaculate literature."
KATE FIGES, 'Independent on Sunday'

"Remarkable for its candour, but also for its elegance, its sense of morality and its generosity of spirit."
ELIZA CHARLTON, 'Sunday Telegraph'

"Harrison writes like an angel."
PENNY PERRICK, 'The Times'

"Remarkable moving."
PENELOPE MORTIMER, 'Daily Telegraph'

"Heartfelt, extraordinary...This is a book that, once read, refuses to go away."
'Marie Claire'

About this edition

• Publisher: Fourth Estate
• Publication date: 2004
• ISBN 10: 0007143192
• ISBN 13: 9780007143191
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 224