Only Child: Writers on the Singular Joys and Solitary Sorrows of Growing Up Solo - Hardcover

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0307238067 ISBN 13: 9780307238061

Publisher: Harmony Books, 2006

Synopsis

In a collection of original, personal essays, some of today's most celebrated authors reflect on the experiences, feelings, and implications of growing up as the only child in a family, in an anthology that features contributions from John Hodgman, Judith Thurman, and Kathryn Harrison, among others. 30,000 first printing.

About this title

Review:

Kathryn Harrison (The Kiss), John Hodgman (The Areas of My Expertise) and the New Yorker's Judith Thurman (Isak Dinesen) are just three of the noteworthy writers who contributed to this collection of essays on growing up sans siblings. Editors Siegel and Uviller have gathered the 20 original pieces into general themes: childhood, family relationships, the desire-or lack thereof-for a sibling and the unique joys and perils of being an adult "only." The gems of this volume are the authors who trade analysis for storytelling, such as magician and author Teller's life-affirming "New Year's Eve 1997," Peter Terzian's "Postcards to Myself," Rebecca Walker's "Blood of my Blood" and Alysia Abbott's "A Pair of Onlies." Though other entries are weighed down by too much therapy-speak, some provide resonant psychological insight, as in Sara Reistad-Long's: "Having Mom and Dad waiting in the wings had made me appear enviably confident, but I suspect that when my supporting cast takes its final bow, I'll stumble more than most." Though the book's topic proves too narrow to sustain its nearly 300 pages-as Thomas Beller notes, it's "hard to know how to separate the only from the childhood"-many only children, as well as those who sometimes wish they were, will find much to appreciate in this volume.

"From the Hardcover edition."

Some of the onlies loathed their solitary state . . . Others reveled in the spotlight . . . But most of the entries fall somewhere in between contented but bittersweet.
New York Times
The dueling characteristics of the only child lonely or independent? precocious or smart-mouthed? clingy or loyal? [are] the makings . . . of a collection of twenty-one essays by various writers exploring the pleasures and paucity of a life without siblings.
New York Observer
(H)onest, insightful and entertaining these diverse essays play exceedingly well together.
Time Out New York"

"Some of the onlies loathed their solitary state . . . Others reveled in the spotlight . . . But most of the entries fall somewhere in between-contented but bittersweet."
--New York Times

"The dueling characteristics of the only child-lonely or independent? precocious or smart-mouthed? clingy or loyal?-[are] the makings . . . of a collection of twenty-one essays by various writers exploring the pleasures and paucity of a life without siblings."
--New York Observer

"(H)onest, insightful and entertaining...these diverse essays play exceedingly well together."
--Time Out New York

About the Author:

DEBORAH SIEGEL is the author of Sisterhood, Interrupted: From Radical Women to Grrls Gone Wild. She has written for Psychology Today and The Progressive and is a founding editor of The Scholar & Feminist Online.

DAPHNE UVILLER is a former editor and current contributing writer to Time Out New York. She has been published in the Washington Post, the New York Times, Newsday, The Forward, Allure, and Self. Both editors are only children.

About this edition

• Publisher: Harmony Books
• Publication date: 2006
• ISBN 10: 0307238067
• ISBN 13: 9780307238061
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 256
• Editor: Siegel Deborah, Uviller Daphne