The Latter Days: A Memoir (Tho

Freeman, Judith

ISBN 10: 1410493113 / ISBN 13: 9781410493118

Published by Thorndike Press Large Print, 2016

About this Item

Item in very good condition! Textbooks may not include supplemental items i.e. CDs, access codes etc.

Seller Inventory # 00096523037

Bibliographic Details

• Title: The Latter Days: A Memoir (Tho
• Publisher: Thorndike Press Large Print
• Publication Date: 2016
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1410493113
• ISBN 13: 9781410493118
• Binding: Hardcover
• Condition: Very Good

About this title

Synopsis

An arresting, lyrical memoir about the path the author took sometimes unwittingly out of her Mormon upbringing and through a thicket of profound difficulties to become a writer.
At twenty-two, Judith Freeman was working in the Mormon church owned department store in the Utah town where she d grown up. In the process of divorcing the man she had married at seventeen, she was living in her parents house with her four-year-old son, who had already endured two heart surgeries. She had abandoned Mormonism, the faith into which she had been born, and she was having an affair with her son s surgeon, a married man with three children of his own. It was at this fraught moment that she decided to become a writer. In this moving memoir, Freeman explores the circumstances and choices that informed her course, and those that allowed her to find a way forward. Writing with remarkable candor and insight, she gives us an illuminating, singular portrait of resilience and forgiveness, of memory and hindsight, and of the ways in which we come to identify our truest selves.

"(With black-and-white photographs throughout.)""

Review

"The Latter Days," written with thoughtful, hard-won honesty, is the record of a girl growing up in a closed society rigidly governed by a male religious hierarchy a profoundly undemocratic system that claims to embody American values. Painfully but with no rancour, Judith Freeman makes vivid the security of belonging and the rewards of obedience, the costs of security and obedience, the rewards and costs of seeking freedom. A brave and valuable book. Ursula K. Le Guin, author of "The Left Hand of Darkness
" This moving book came at me like a secret lost letter from a friend, offering in Judith Freeman s trademark frank and pellucid prose a rich and revealing personal history in the world she knows as well as anyone: Utah, in this case the patriarchal cloister of Utah in the 50 s and 60 s. Her story is one of family succor and sorrow; and the flickering origins of shame. This is an affecting and tender memoir as Ms. Freeman displays the dark wonder of the forces that shape our life choices. Ron Carlson, author of ""Return to Oakpine"""
"
"The Latter Days "arrived at four P.M. and I read until midnight, unable to leave this memoir. Judith Freeman s book is elegant and precise, as is always true of her prose. In this memoir of her childhood and coming of age in a landscape of rigid belief and constraint, the undertone of wonder and the heartbreaking moments of trust that faltered, as it had to, Freeman sends rays of light straight into the reader s heart. " "Susan Straight, author of "Between Heaven and Here"
I m trying to put my finger on why the story of a young girl s coming of age in a Mormon household in Utah during the Fifties and Sixties a girl who just happens to have become one of our most prominent writers has so captivated me.Even more than the story itself, fascinating on its own merits, it was the elegant style of its storytelling, the cool, unexpectedly sophisticated tone. Unlike many a memoir of growing up in a constricting, sometimes dangerous environment, Freeman lets the evidence stand for itself. There s no hyperventilating "did you see how bad this was? Do you see how nuts this is? Can you believe? Can you imagine?...." I was impressed by her even-handedness in her memoir. We re given a picture of a time and a place, and of life within an all-encompassing faith in its positive aspects as well as its strangeness .A compelling story, compulsively readable, and its authorial voice calm, keen-eyed, gracious but only to a point still rings inside me. An unusually elegant memoir of a young girl s unique coming of age. Janet Fitch, "Goodreads"
Poignant .Freeman writes with the clear voice of a person who s (mostly) shed the trappings of the past. "Publishers Weekly"
A novelist s account of her early life growing up Mormon in Utah and the family memories she kept hidden from herself....highly readable .A poignant, searching memoir of self discovery. " Kirkus Reviews""

**Named one of 30 Books You Should Read This Summer by "Chicago Tribune"**
"The Latter Days," written with thoughtful, hard-won honesty, is the record of a girl growing up in a closed society rigidly governed by a male religious hierarchy a profoundly undemocratic system that claims to embody American values. Painfully but with no rancour, Judith Freeman makes vivid the security of belonging and the rewards of obedience, the costs of security and obedience, the rewards and costs of seeking freedom. A brave and valuable book. Ursula K. Le Guin, author of "The Left Hand of Darkness
" This moving book came at me like a secret lost letter from a friend, offering in Judith Freeman s trademark frank and pellucid prose a rich and revealing personal history in the world she knows as well as anyone: Utah, in this case the patriarchal cloister of Utah in the 50 s and 60 s. Her story is one of family succor and sorrow; and the flickering origins of shame. This is an affecting and tender memoir as Ms. Freeman displays the dark wonder of the forces that shape our life choices. Ron Carlson, author of ""Return to Oakpine"""
"
"The Latter Days "arrived at four P.M. and I read until midnight, unable to leave this memoir. Judith Freeman s book is elegant and precise, as is always true of her prose. In this memoir of her childhood and coming of age in a landscape of rigid belief and constraint, the undertone of wonder and the heartbreaking moments of trust that faltered, as it had to, Freeman sends rays of light straight into the reader s heart. " "Susan Straight, author of "Between Heaven and Here"
I m trying to put my finger on why the story of a young girl s coming of age in a Mormon household in Utah during the Fifties and Sixties a girl who just happens to have become one of our most prominent writers has so captivated me.Even more than the story itself, fascinating on its own merits, it was the elegant style of its storytelling, the cool, unexpectedly sophisticated tone. Unlike many a memoir of growing up in a constricting, sometimes dangerous environment, Freeman lets the evidence stand for itself. There s no hyperventilating "did you see how bad this was? Do you see how nuts this is? Can you believe? Can you imagine?...." I was impressed by her even-handedness in her memoir. We re given a picture of a time and a place, and of life within an all-encompassing faith in its positive aspects as well as its strangeness .A compelling story, compulsively readable, and its authorial voice calm, keen-eyed, gracious but only to a point still rings inside me. An unusually elegant memoir of a young girl s unique coming of age. Janet Fitch, "Goodreads"
Poignant .Freeman writes with the clear voice of a person who s (mostly) shed the trappings of the past. "Publishers Weekly"
A novelist s account of her early life growing up Mormon in Utah and the family memories she kept hidden from herself....highly readable .A poignant, searching memoir of self discovery. " Kirkus Reviews
" Freeman s story of self-discovery and falling away from the Mormon Church will resonate strongly with many readers, particularly since in some ways not all that much has changed. In April 2016 theThe Salt Lake Tribunebroke a story about victims of sexual assault at LDS church-run Brigham Young University who are routinely expelled for Honor Code violations due to a blame-the-victim mentality. Mormon women interviewed for the news story told of being overwhelmed by guilt and shame and said that they lacked a vocabulary to even talk about what had happened to them. Freeman would recognize the problem. Nonetheless, her memoir is not stridently anti-Mormon and in parts she recounts spiritual experiences connected to her childhood faith and pride in her family history. "" 15 Bytes"""