Self Abuse - Softcover

Self, Jonathan

3.55

53 ratings by Goodreads

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0743230973 ISBN 13: 9780743230971

Publisher: Simon & Schuster, 2002

View all copies of this ISBN edition:

At 35, despite his determination to be different from his parents, Jonathan Self found his life echoing theirs: he was a twice-divorced absent father with three young children, one in the UK and two in Australia. In this frank, moving and often funny memoir, Self documents his efforts to break the family mould and become a different kind of parent. Highly personal in its discussion of alcohol, drug and sexual abuse and filled with extraordinary characters and events, SELF ABUSE also tells a more universal story - a story about best intentions goig awry, of the pain of being separated from one's children, and of the deep impact parent's actions have on their children lives. Ultimately, SELF ABUSE is a story filled with love and hope.

"synopsis" may belong to another edition of this title.

Review:

'An honest heartbreaker of a book that should be compulsory reading for anyone who brings a child into the world' -- Tony Parsons

'Jonathan Self's compulsive, beautifully-written memoir [is] all the more powerful for its sparse, bleak honesty...' -- The Times

'The cast of grotesques who people his childhood are all described with great good humour and a laconic wit that had me chortling aloud' -- Daily Mail

'This life is funny, appalling and dark' -- Time Out

Book Description:

At 35, Jonathan Self found that he had become the very thing he never wanted to be: an absent father with three young children. This moving and closely observed memoir traces three generations of dysfunctional family life and Self's own determination not to repeat the patterns of the past.

"About this title" may belong to another edition of this title.