Exposure: A Novel

Description

“Luminous and affecting . . . [Exposure] examines the often fine line between art and abuse. . . . Taut in plot, beautifully realistic, and intelligently disturbing.”
–Harper’s Bazaar

Ann Rogers appears to be a happily married, successful young woman. A talented photographer, she creates happy memories for others, videotaping weddings, splicing together scenes of smiling faces, editing out awkward moments. But she cannot edit her own memories so easily–images of a childhood spent as her father’s model and muse, the subject of his celebrated series of controversial photographs. To cope, Ann slips into a secret life of shame and vice. But when the Museum of Modern Art announces a retrospective of her father’s shocking portraits, Ann finds herself teetering on the edge of self-destruction, desperately trying to escape the psychological maelstrom that threatens to consume her.

“Astounding . . . told in prose as multifaceted as a diamond, crystalline and mesmerizing. ‘Remarkable’ hardly goes far enough.”
–Cosmopolitan

“Impossible to put down . . . Kathryn Harrison is an extremely gifted writer, poetic, passionate, and elegant.”
–San Francisco Chronicle

“Exquisite, exhilarating, and harrowing.”
–Donna Tartt, author of The Secret History and The Little Friend

“A breathless urban nightmare not easy to forget. Stark, brilliant, and original work.”
–Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

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Customer Reviews

Cold ...
There was a kind of woman who was very fashionable throughout the nineties - intellectual, talented, beautiful, damaged in some vague and unspoken way. These women made a performance of their damage and of their self-destruction and took us all along for the ride. Kathryn Harrison, with her memoir of incest with her father The Kiss was certainly one of them. I think also of Elizabeth Wurtzel (Prozac Nation) and to a certain extent Kay Redfield Jamison (An Unquiet Mind: A Memoir of Moods and Madness), although I honestly think Jamison is ultimately more scholarly and less transgressive than the other two (and ultimately more successful). Ann Rogers, the main character in Exposure: A Novel is definitely one of them.

Harrison's prose is razor-sharp and her characterizations are clear and unmuddied, but there's something dishonest at the heart of this novel and I can't quite put my finger on what it is. Perhaps it is the way that sickness and misery are romanticized through this character. Perhaps it is the cold and enabling nature of the people around her. Maybe it's the refusal to truly examine the relationship between father and daughter that is at the center of all of this misery.

Does Harrison capture what it feels like to begin spinning out of control in this way? Yes and no. Yes, in that Ann is certainly spinning out of control and no, in that her wealth privilege ultimately cushion her in a way that takes the reader and all of the characters in the novel out of the story. Depression and suicidal self-destruction are neither glamorous nor pretty - Harrison spends too much time on and just past the edge of pretty to make this book truly work.

2010-01-31 | addicted to words (East Bay, CA) | Helpful Votes: 1 | Rating: 3

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Disturbingly Good
very good read, you can really understand what someone
That has been abused goes through and how it affects
Them in their every day living.

2008-07-16 | Helpful Votes: 0 | Rating: 4

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I Love the Dark Side!
This has been an interesting journey in reading this book. I recall my own moments into the dark side and I can feel the emotions and upheavals in this story. It's beautifully written and makes it hard to put down. I found Ms. Harrison by accident, but can't wait to read more!

2008-06-21 | I Write to Live (New Rochelle, NY) | Helpful Votes: 0 | Rating: 5

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Troubling, haunting, exquisite
With hindsight--the cue from Kathryn Harrison's memoir "Kiss" published a few years after "Exposure"--it is clear why a father-daughter's relationship is a central theme in her writing.

"Exposure" is written in beautiful lyrical prose that has immediacy and intimacy as the story explores the inner world of Ann Rogers. When the younger Ann served as her father's photography model, she had to keep her pose still for hours on end. She sacrificed play and study time normal children would have in order to please a man that would never pay her attention otherwise. Her quest for his affection--the only time he ever touched her was to rearrange her hair or limbs for a photo--is both pathetic and infuriating. But what Ann didn't know until after his death was that he also spied on her at times she believed she was alone. That invasion sealed her scars and plunged her further into her loss of identity.

We are accompanying the adult Ann in her struggle to find herself, while hiding from people closest to her.

I particularly liked Kathryn Harrison's breaking of the mold of today's fiction. (Perhaps in 1993, when Exposure was first published, publishers were less formulaic.) The protagonist is not a heroine in the current fiction's definition of one who overcomes mounting obstacles. Instead, we journey with Ann as she descends into darker and darker places within herself.

SPOILER: At the end, Harrison leaves the struggle unfinished and unresolved ending. She does not tie loose ends neatly and leaves the reader to wonder whether Ann could ever really make it.

Talia Carner, author,
Puppet Child and China Doll

2008-01-08 | Author, Puppet Child & China Doll (New York, NY United States) | Helpful Votes: 0 | Rating: 4

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Exquisite and painstakingly beautiful
"Exposure" is a magnificent novel about a woman who is headed on a downward spiral of self-destruction. On the outside, Ann Rogers appears to have it all. At the age of 33, she co-owns a successful video production company. She has plenty of money, a wonderful husband, and strikingly good looks. On the inside, however, Ann is a mess. She's a diabetic and frequently fails to follow her strict insulin regimen, causing herself to go into insulin shock. Ann's secret addiction to crystal meth only makes matters worse, causing more severe symptoms of the diabetes and even forcing Ann to undergo several frightening eye surgeries. On top of all that, every time Ann does crystal meth, she has the urge to shoplift. All in all, she's a mess.

There's much more to Ann's story than what meets the eye. She is the daughter of Edgar Rogers, a famous photographer who committed suicide 15 years ago. Edgar frequently used Ann as his model, and many of the photographs featured his pre-adolescent daughter in sexually explicit poses. The story behind these photos isn't what the reader might be inclined to assume at first, but the images do have a powerful affect on Ann. As a large exhibit of her father's work prepares to open, Ann becomes overwhelmed with memories of her childhood, and her self-destructive behavior escalates as a result.

I absolutely loved this book. Author Kathryn Harrison spares no expense when exposing the dark undercurrents of Ann's fragile existence. In addition to being a brutally honest and detailed account of this character's life and emotions, Harrison's prose are elegant and beautiful to read. "Exposure" chronicles the way Ann's personality was shaped as a result of her being a work of art, but this book is truly an amazing work of art all on its own. It's a must-read.

2007-10-05 (Chicago, IL United States) | Helpful Votes: 10 | Rating: 5

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The Mother Knot: A Memoir

Description

In this dark gem of a book by the author of The Kiss, a complex mother-daughter relationship precipitates a journey through depression to greater understanding, acceptance, freedom, and love,.

Spare and unflinching, The Mother Knot is Kathryn Harrison’s courageous exploration of her painful feelings about her mother, and of her depression and recovery. Writer, wife, mother of three, Kathryn Harrison finds herself, at age forty-one, wrestling with a black, untamable force that seems to have the power to undermine her sanity and her safety, a darkness that is tied to her relationship with her own mother, dead for many years but no less a haunting presence. Shaken by a family emergency that reveals the fragility of her current happiness, Harrison falls prey to despair and anxiety she believed she’d overcome long before. A relapse of anorexia becomes the tangible reminder of a youth spent trying to achieve the perfection she had hoped would win her mother’s love, and forces her to confront, understand, and ultimately cast out—in startling physical form—the demons within herself. Powerful, insightful, unforgettable, by “a writer of extraordinary gifts” (Tobias Wolff), Kathryn Harrison’s The Mother Knot is a knockout.


From the Hardcover edition.

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Customer Reviews

Very disappointing
I had such a hard time finishing this very short memoir. It was very short but packed with lots of reflections. I had read "The Kiss" a memoir also written by Kathryn Harrison and thought it was powerful so I thought this one would be equally as good--or better but no. I wouldn't recommend this book to anyone. My mind kept wandering to other books I have--that I would much rather be reading. :(

2008-04-25 | Helpful Votes: 1 | Rating: 2

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Mother-Daughter Relationship Issues Must Read
Kathryn Harrison is the author of another memoir, The Kiss; a travel memoir, The Road to Santiago; a collection of essays, Seeking Rapture; and several novels including The Seal Wife, The Binding Chair, Exposure, and Thicker Than Water. In The Mother Knot, Harrison's memoir reflects on the mother-daughter relationship that consumed her life.

In her acknowledgements (which she chose to place at the end of the book rather than the beginning), Harrison writes, "Though my mother didn't prepare me for marriage or motherhood or the job of living, she did give me a muse. My love for her preceded and has outlasted the rage. Because her purpose was to elude she continues to fascinate. She provides what a writer requires, an eternally empty vessel into which endless characters and plots, and all the longing they represent, can be poured."

Not unlike myself, or many women I know, Harrison's relationship with her mother consists of a series of incongruous emotions--love and hate, pride and despair, admiration and shame, but most of all misunderstanding. From these emotions, Harrison shares with her reader the struggle to finally set herself free from a painful past so that she can move into the present and future.

Struggling with anorexia and depression, Harrison relates a childhood spent in search of her mother's approval and love... a quest that seemed to be in vain. At the age of forty-one, Harrison finally is able to come to terms with the hold her long dead mother continues to have on her. She takes positive steps to regain her life and to find a way to live peacefully with the memories of her mother.

This poignant memoir is a must read for anyone who struggles with mother-daughter relationship issues of their own. To see the tenacious grasp Harrison's mother managed to hold on her even after her death and to see the depths to which Harrison had to sink before she could move forward is to witness a transformation. To understand the struggle is to begin to work through one's own demons.

by Lee Ambrose
for Story Circle Book Reviews
reviewing books by, for, and about women

2008-03-06 | Helpful Votes: 5 | Rating: 5

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Impressive...
Kathryn Harrison achieves quite a bit in "The Mother Knot" -- tying together breast feeding, maternal guilt, anorexia, and grief over a parent's negligence. I was drawn in from the first line and finished the book without getting up once (it's only 82 pages.) I hadn't read Harrison before but certainly will again. Her style is poetic and spare. She's brutally honest too... she has led a difficult life and spares no one, including herself. I look forward to her other books.

2007-09-01 (San Francisco, CA United States) | Helpful Votes: 1 | Rating: 5

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Revelation/Validation
For reasons I cannot understand, I seem to be among the minority who viewed Kathryn Harrison's "The Kiss" as a restrained and remarkable memoir. I was not side-tracked by what many apparently perceived as sensationalist writing...on the contrary, I found Harrison's account of her experiences to be a lean, intelligent, and heartfelt account of an unspeakably difficult passage...furthermore, I can say honestly that among the more compelling aspects of this piece to be her recollections of her relationship with her mother; I have been haunted ever since by those images. As such, I jumped at the opportunity to read "The Mother Knot." I must admit, when the book arrived, I was disappointed to note it's slender profile; little did I know that I would spend the night that followed in lonely sorrow, sobbing, as I processed my own relationship with my mother, who finally passed away this past September...let NO ONE DEPRIVE THIS AUTHOR HER VOICE.

2006-01-13 (New York, NY) | Helpful Votes: 6 | Rating: 5

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Not very interesting
I picked up this book because of my interest in Anorexia and the author has had to live with this horrible disease.

Although I feel for the author, I just could not get into this book at all.

I am getting a little tired of reading books written by mothers who only seem to have an identity when it comes to their kids. Its obvious that the author is a smart, creative woman, yet, she came across as whiny and self-indulgent.

The fact that she stopped breastfeeding, which in turn made her loose her complete identity was painful and frustrating to read. I wanted to scream at her that there is more to life than just being someone's mother.

I realize that this was but a symptom of what is really going on for her, but still.... the whole thing just grew tiresome.

As for the anorexia, the author makes it sound as though compared to no longer breastfeeding, the anorexia was just a little bit of a problem with food.

The one thing I did feel was her struggle with her mother and the self-loathing it left with her. Obviously there is a huge relationship between her mother and her feelings as a mother, but this book does not have one ounce of humour - it really could have used a little.

Thank goodness the book was so slim.

Not a recommended read.

2004-12-22 | www.bookshipper.blogspot.com (Montreal, Quebec) | Helpful Votes: 7 | Rating: 2

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While They Slept: An Inquiry into the Murder of a Family

Description

Early on an April morning, eighteen-year-old Billy Frank Gilley, Jr., killed his sleeping parents. Surprised in the act by his younger sister, Becky, he turned on her as well. Billy then climbed the stairs to the bedroom of his other sister, Jody, and said, “We’re free.” But is one ever free after an unredeemable act of violence? In this mesmerizing book–based on interviews with Billy and Jody as well as with friends, police, and social workers involved in the case–bestselling writer Kathryn Harrison brilliantly uncovers the true story behind this shocking crime and examines the extent as well as the limits of psychic resilience in the aftermath of tragedy.

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Customer Reviews

Not a true crime novel
After finishing this book, I read the negative reviews with surprise, since I was fascinated and haunted by the novel. Most of the negative reviewers were clearly expecting a different book--a lurid true crime expose--and were disappointed by how much the author injected her own story of family dysfunction into the novel. Having read a good bit of true crime myself, I can understand how they would be disappointed by this cerebral, psychological portrait. There are no crime scene photos, or even photos of the killer and victims. There is little focus on the blood and guts of the murders. Instead, Harrison tries to understand and portray a much more subtle story--how lives go on after shocking tragedy. Given the ubiquity of terrible events in the news, this is a story worth telling. How are survivors of Haiti's earthquake going to reconstruct their lives? How do victims of violent crime recover? Readers will find much useful material on these topics here. The book is a bit repetitive in structure, but the analysis of familial dysfunction and how survivors reconstruct their lives is right on.

2010-02-19 (Knoxville, TN USA) | Helpful Votes: 0 | Rating: 5

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Warped reflections
Harrison is too invested in her own sense of herself as a victim -- which she brings up every three pages or so -- to say much that is credibly insightful about this domestic tragedy. She constantly projects her own personality onto survivor Jody, so we get little sense of who this girl was and who she became. She never honestly addresses the possibility that Jody manipulated her damaged brother -- or aided him in the murder of their family.

2010-02-19 (Orlando, FL USA) | Helpful Votes: 1 | Rating: 1

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Strange Bedfellows
The author admits to taking a guilty pleasure in true-crime books--trust me, she'll tell you all about it, right off the bat. Then she'll set about wringing her hands over the meaning of it all, and what it means, and what could it possibly mean?! Then, at length, there's more sophomoric philosophizing, and then a little more sophomoric philosophizing, and the story has yet to get underway. So is the story of the Gilleys possibly NOT the story the author means to tell? Is it POSSIBLE, just possible, that the story the author means to tell is the story of Kathyrn Harrison? (Again.) And is it just possible that all the ruminations, the flavorless soup of her self-obsessed narrative--narcissism, narcissism, solopsistic narcissism--is motivated by some underlying, deeply unconscious disgust at herself for having a taste for true crime? And is it therefore possible she's sabotaged her own attempt, massively sabotaged her own book by NOT telling the story everyone who's picked up the book wants to read about? Well, that's probably a little simplistic, but let's just put it this way: If only she'd kept herself out of it, it might have made an excellent book. Of course, there's this possibilty as well: She didn't know how to tell the story, so she padded it with her own. Perhaps. Too bad a Joe McGinnis didn't get his hands on this story; too bad an author with a respect for story didn't get her hands on this story. And just as an aside, to copy e-mail correspondence IS NOT WRITING--and We. Really. Don't. Care. I also found it just short of offensive that she insisted on comparing what had happened to her to what had happened to her putative subject. Really, though, she, the author, is the subject of this book--don't let any back-cover copy fool you. If you are fascinated by Kathryn Harrison and her grad-school thinking, by all means, do read the book. It's tedious, but go right ahead. I purchased it on the strength of the New York Times Book Review review. When will I learn?! They have their own agenda, and it oftentimes has nothing to do with the book itself. Blah. Fooled again. Finally, I would just like to add that I have no objection to an author writing whatever book she cares to write. What I object to is being misinformed about that book--I believe it's called false advertising, and in any other industry, it isn't legal. This book is not what it purports to be.

2010-02-07 | Helpful Votes: 0 | Rating: 1

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A Poorly Told Tale of Murder
I won't bore you with the details of the book was about.. that's obvious if you read the previous reviews. I found it sadly lacking in substance, and at least a third of the book was about Ms. Harrison's struggles, not the murder of the Gilley family. Ms. Harrison obviously identifies with Jody, who appears squeaky clean, perhaps because the author wants to appear the same.
I also found that in much of the book the authors interjects her own thoughts where they don't belong, such as "perhaps" he felt this or thought that. I felt as if I was reading psychological insights of the authors throughout. The book fails miserably in technique, and is full of the authors perceptions and thoughts. A very unsatisfying read, I very nearly didn't finish it. (unusual for me)
As for being rated up there with IN COLD BLOOD, you've got to be kidding. No, really!

2010-01-04 | bookqueen827 (NY) | Helpful Votes: 1 | Rating: 1

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Not convinced of Jody's innocence
Very good book, but for most True Crime fans, this will be too analytic. While I don't like graphic crime-scene photos, I do want some photographs of the people I'm reading about (and could find only one of Billy online and none of Jody)...no photos in this very different true crime book.

I felt the abuse Billy suffered..being tied up and beaten with a hose by his father about twice per week..was ample reason to go nuts and kill his father and conniving mother. Also, in his psychotic rage, he killed one younger sister.This happened after years of trying to report the heinous abuse to authorities, which only led to more abuse from the enraged parents.

However, I felt disgust with sister, Jody... and the author for continually lauding the wonderful life Jody created for herself, after conveniently having her redneck, lunatic parents out of her way. The sister AND Billy often spoke of killing the abusive parents and it was Jody who was being punished when the murders occurred..Billy told her afterward, "Now we're free"

Jody turned on Billy immediately, testifying for the prosecution, going on to lead the life she felt she had always been entitled to, cultivating people who could speed her upward climb in society and cutting off all contact with the imprisoned Billy.

I ended the book hating Jody and not being crazy about the author, who both had big problems to overcome and did that well, but csn't stop congratulating themselves...and damning Billy.
(I read an update, where Billy finally succeeded in an appeal for a new trial and Jody gave a statement that he belonged in prison for life...what, Jody...afraid he might expose you?)

2009-12-16 | liberal artist (nc) | Helpful Votes: 0 | Rating: 4

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Poison

Description

Francisca de Luarac, the daughter of a poor Spanish silk grower, is a dreamer of fabulous dreams. Marie Louise de Bourbon, the niece of Louis XIV, dances in slippers of fine Spanish silk in the French Court of the Sun King and imagines her own enchanted future. Born on the same day--in an age when superstition, repression, and the Inquisition reign--the lives of these two young women unfold in tandem, barely touching. Each hoards the memory of her adored lost mother like an amulet. Francica's obsession with her lover, a Catholick priest, will shaper her fate. Marie Loouise is yoked by political expediency to the mad, imptoent Carlos II of Spain. But even as their twin destinies spiral inexorably toward disaster, both Queen and commoner cultivate a dangerous, secret life dedicated to resistance, transcendence, and love. Written in gorgeous prose that has the sheen of silk, Kathryn Harrison's POISON vividlyreminds us of the persistence of desire, the passion that exists between mothers and daughters, and the sorcery of dreams.

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Customer Reviews

started interesting but overall fell kind of flat for me...
Well first off, historical novels are my absolute favorite (mostly all i read anymore) so i was interested in this book, as it related to the Spanish Inquisition which I knew little about outside of Monty Python bits lol. I did love the actual writing/wording of this novel and the descriptiveness was great (probably what kept me reading until the end) but as for plot and actual interest in the characters, I was a little disappointed. I did become interested in the queen's story and her fate, even more so when I read in the afterword that her story was based on that of a real queen. But the silk farmers daughter - for some reason, she ended up being sort of irritating to me, and since she narrated the whole story, it took some of my interest away from the entire thing. I was hoping to care more about the relationship with her and the priest but mostly I did find myself saying "yeah thats sad but so what? you should have known better". Like one reader said, there just wasnt alot of point or conflict to this one. Not to mention, all the talk of bodily fluids did get a wee bit nauseating after awhile lol.

2007-10-18 | AntiqueAng | Helpful Votes: 2 | Rating: 2

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Just plain poison
The Spanish Inquisition, Spain's horrific culture of religion gone off the rails entirely, unspeakable torture and evil. Louis XIV's niece Marie Louise sent at age 18 to marry Carlos the Spanish king to forge an alliance. They continue war, and there is no baby, which is a literal curse on every aspect of Spanish life. Parallel story of the silk cultivation, failed in the case of the deLuercas. Unrelenting bad luck continues. Harrison's writing drips down each page. Some call it hypnotic, beautiful, words one might use to describe blood. A 4 for the writing.

2007-08-03 (NJ, USA) | Helpful Votes: 1 | Rating: 3

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couldn't wait to get through it
I had high hopes for this book... especially after reading a lot of positive reviews. I generally like books about women from different periods of time (Crimson Petal and the White, the Dress Lodger, Slammerkin). However, I found this book tedious. In the future, whenever I hear a lot of people talking about the "beautiful, poetic language" - i'm taking it for what it is. Flowery, and sometimes over-descriptive account of the story. This book had the makings of a lot going for it - 2 women's lives parralled in tenuous situations but it fell flat for me and I think it was partly because of the language and partly because I could not get into the characters as much as I wanted to. I don't want to read about a person's dreams more than what is really happening in the story. I like stories that are more straight-forward and unflinching.

2005-11-10 (New York, NY) | Helpful Votes: 5 | Rating: 2

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Couldn't wait to finish it
It was a mission to finish this book because at times I was disgusted with it. I have read other reviewers comment on the excess of bodily fluids . . . Were these too crude for a lover of historical fiction? Perhaps . . . The information on the Spanish monarchy, the Inquisition and even the French Court was rich in images, but when I pick up a book I want more. Reading a book is like watching a movie. You want a good plot, you want to expand your knowledge of a particular era, you want to appreciate the characters, but you also want to be entertained. This time it failed for me.

2005-03-08 (Miami, FL USA) | Helpful Votes: 7 | Rating: 2

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Horrors of the Inquisition
Harrison's novel of the Spanish Inquisition is a visionary, mystical drama narrated by a victim of the Inquisition, Francisca de Luarca, daughter of a silk farmer and his unfortunately fecund wife, Concepcion.

Right at the beginning Harrison takes a risk, letting the reader know her narrator is, at 28, languishing between tortures in the dungeons, her father ruined, her mother a previous victim of the madness of the times, her lover dead. And in the palace above her lies a woman born on the same day as Francisca, Maria Luisa, Queen of Spain, dying of poison.

With this ending in store, why read further? But among Harrison's gifts is that of arousing curiosity. From the first page, the reader wants to know how every event came to pass. Francisca's father, a dreamer like his daughter, burns his mulberry trees and plants a new improved strain which the worms will not eat.

"From this time forward, with my grandfather dead and Papa ruined, the fortunes of the Luarca family would be left to the ingenuity of its women. Hardly a bad thing, on the face of it, as Luarca women lacked for neither talent nor tenacity. In fact, my mother was soon discovered to possess a rare gift, and it was this gift which provided her passport to the palace. It was this gift that would save us for a time, before it also brought destruction."

With each small leap into a more terrible future, Harrison spins a strong cord binding her reader deeper into the story. The narrative is Francisca's but from the beginning her life runs in tandem with that of Spain's future queen, Marie Louise de Bourbon, niece of Louis XIV, a girl who couldn't be more different from Francisca and whose life actually crosses hers only twice.

Francisca's dreams turn to ashes as they come to pass. Marie Louise, too carefree to dream, is plunged into a painful reality as soon as she crosses the border from France to Spain. It seems entirely natural, in Harrison's hands, that Francisca should reveal the new queen's most intimate thoughts and emotions as her horror grows, yoked to a grotesque and impotent man. For dreams, Maria Luisa (as she now is) must turn to opium.

As the queen, a faithful wife, is more and more reviled for childlessness, Francisca embraces a grand forbidden passion with her priest. The two women's stories unfold alternately in rich, vivid prose steeped in Francisca's magic realism and the morbid superstition that ruled Spain.

The Inquisition is everywhere. With cart horses' hooves muffled to deaden the noise of the Inquisitor's night arrival, neighbors disappear. Only their empty shoes left by the door reveal their fate. Anything - a sick child, a dead calf - or nothing at all, may attract the attention of the Inquisitor. Witches abound and in the palace a whole wing is given over to strange creatures who may foretell the future with their bleeding feet or divine secrets with a touch of their hands.

These are turbulent, fearful times when the freakish is either fashionable or cursed and good fortune may be a sign of sorcery. Horrible tortures exalt God and purify the souls of witches. Self-mortification is glorified.

Harrison's earthy, luminous and intimate prose brings these turbulent dark days into the mind of the reader where it lingers long after the passions of Francisca have been stilled and the husk of the queen has been shattered to release her trapped soul.

2004-03-11 (Marathon, FL USA) | Helpful Votes: 11 | Rating: 5

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The Kiss

Description

We meet at airports. We meet in cities where we've never been before. We meet where no one will recognize us.

A "man of God" is how someone described my father to me. I don 't remember who. Not my mother. I'm young enough that I take the words to mean he has magical properties and that he is good, better than other people.

With his hand under my chin, my father draws my face toward his own. He touches his lips to mine. I stiffen.

I am frightened by the kiss. I know it wrong, and its wrongness is what lets me know, too, that it is a secret.

We meet at airport. We meet in cities where we've never been before. We meet where no one will recognize us.A "man of God" is how someone described my father to me. I don 't remember who. Not my mother. I'm young enough that I take the words to mean he has magical properties and that he is good, better than other people.With his hand under my chin, my father draws my face toward his own. He touches his lips to mine. I stiffen.I am frightened by the kiss. I know it wrong, and its wrongness is what lets me know, too, that it is a secret.

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The 1990s seems to be the decade of revelation. What used to be private is becoming increasingly public. All is aired on talk shows whose guests are no longer celebrities hawking their latest film, book, or album, but ordinary citizens selling their personal traumas. Mothers Who Sleep with Their Daughters' Boyfriends; Men Who Wear Their Girlfriends' Clothes; People Whose Families Have Been Murdered Before Their Eyes--no subject is too salacious or too shameful for public consumption.

And now here comes a true story about A Woman Who Slept with Her Father--prime fodder for the TV talk show feeding frenzy. Certainly it would be easy to lump Kathryn Harrison's new memoir, The Kiss into this same category of titillating topics, but that would be a mistake. There is nothing remotely titillating about Harrison's book; instead, it reads like a slow descent into hell--one that compels and repels in almost equal measure at times. Harrison, who did not really meet her father until she was 20, takes the reader on a difficult journey into her loveless childhood, her bouts with anorexia and bulimia, and, eventually, the incestuous 4-year affair with her father. Her prose is deceptively simple; her choice of present tense to describe events that occurred many years ago forces an immediacy--almost a complicity--upon the reader that heightens both revulsion and compassion.

The Kiss is not for everybody. Some readers will be outraged by its subject matter; others will find it just too painful to read. But for those who make it through, this harrowing tale promises the reward of a life reclaimed and a tragedy transcended.

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Customer Reviews

Genetic Sexual Attraction
This book is about Genetic Attraction - or in this case - Genetic Sexual Attraction. GSA is known to be relatively common amongst reunited biologically related adults. Father/daughter, mother/son, with the most common obsessive attractions amongst siblings (even homosexual attractions).

It's known that as many as 50% of those reunited in adulthood experience a strong (sometimes obsessive) need for closeness (that sometimes is experienced as a very strong sexual attraction). A good agency will warn adoptees seeking a long lost relative of the potential for the attraction.

The bottom line is that having the feelings experienced between the father and daughter in this story may not be unusual, but acting on them through sex was disastrous. The key is NOT to give into the sex.

Unfortunately, the daughter and father in this story did. The girl calls herself a victim, but perhaps they were all victims of a broken/abandoned family unit that lead to GSA - a problem that should be recognized so that reuniting families can get help to establish positive relationships, not ones that break taboos and ruin lives. That's the lesson to be learned from this book. Kudos to this author for tackling the issue...even if at the time of writing it she really didn't understand what she was battling.

2010-03-01 (Culver City, California United States) | Helpful Votes: 3 | Rating: 3

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The Kiss is very engaging particularly for survivors of incest themselves
Katheryn knows how to describe her experience of participating in a family taboo. Her eloquence and honesty makes this a book that can't be put down. I only wish there was more! It's kind of a let down and I don't know if her other books are as intriguing.

2010-01-25 | Helpful Votes: 0 | Rating: 5

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Very Interesting . . . .
I thought this was a very interesting perspective. Wished the writer would have elaborated on parts of her life a little bit more, but overall, good book. I get the impression the writer's Dad is still a pastor and that SCARES me!

2009-12-05 (Kansas) | Helpful Votes: 0 | Rating: 4

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Not Worth It
The synopsis of this book left be hopeful, but reading it left me disappointed.

It is very hard to sympathize with the character, which is amazing since she is supposed to be a victim. However, this book is completely unbelievable and a sorry read at that.

I felt like I was cheated and forced to read rubbish after I was through.

2009-11-01 | Helpful Votes: 2 | Rating: 1

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Don't order from this company
Ordered a book, paid for it, got conformation and then received an e-mail a few days later that the order was canceled. No other reason listed. Prior to getting the cancelation noticed, I received an e-mail from the company that asked me if they could refund the money on my Amazon charge card and that I pay by pay pal. Something doesn't seem right with this company. It's something I felt when they e-mail to change form of payment and after I repiled I never got a response to my response.

2009-10-19 | Helpful Votes: 1 | Rating: 1

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Thicker Than Water: A Novel

Description

Isabel is the troubled daughter of charismatic but reckless parents who hastily wed, divorced just as fast, and distanced themselves from each other–and their child. Left to her grandparents’ care, Isabel longs for her remote, glamorous mother and for a father who is a fading memory. Unable to control her agony, Isabel rebels in perverse and dangerous ways. A captivating novel that gives new meaning to Freud’s “family romance,” Thicker Than Water vividly illuminates the fragile line between love and the darker sides of passion.

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Customer Reviews

To much of a muchness
I have not read any others of Kathryn Harrison's books. After reading this one, I think I probably won't try other books of hers either.

To me, the book is overwrought, both in the writing and (as another reviewer noted) and in the repetitiousness of its main character's expressions of emotions. A good editing job might have helped.

I know about the sad true-life situation which prompted Harrison to write "The Kiss." However, in this novel, the author seems to be recapitulating the incest with the father, but here it seems too calculated to move its readers.

The whole novel seems calculated, I guess I would venture to say.

2010-03-27 | Helpful Votes: 0 | Rating: 1

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OK
Kathryn Harrison is one of my favorite writers, but of all her five books this is the worst. In substance it is nearly identical to "The Kiss", which is a superior piece of work.

2001-09-18 | Helpful Votes: 2 | Rating: 3

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A Masterpeice of Darkness
Kathryn Harrison's debut novel is a masterpiece of darkness. In the same lyrically beautiful words that read more like a poem than prose, Harrison magically weaves a tale of a daughter who is both forgotten and clung to. Although melodrama abounds in this book, Harrison has it all well under control and the characterizations and pacing are just perfect. This is a book that will haunt you, years after you finish the last word.

2000-05-05 | labibliophile | Helpful Votes: 4 | Rating: 5

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Disturbing...
The first book I read by Kathryn Harrison was 'Exposure', which I loved. I picked up 'Thicker Than Water' expecting to love it, too. I ended up giving it to a friend of mine - my initial reaction after finishing it was that I couldn't deal with having it on my bookshelf.

After a couple of years (and after 'The Kiss' came out - which I read and, oddly enough, loved) I picked up 'Thicker Than Water' again. It still disturbed me, but I think it disturbed me less knowing that it was based on something that had occurred. (Notice that I say 'based'...all the critics denouncing Harrison for writing an 'autobiographic account disguised as a first novel' are, in my humble opinion, full of it.) I think what bothered me in the first place was that someone could just make up such a thing...that someone could, with merely the power of their imagination, make it seem so real. Which Harrison does. She has a gift for bringing the reader inside her head.

The only reason I give it 4 stars as opposed to 5 is because, as I said, it disturbed me.

But sometimes it's good to be disturbed.

2000-05-05 (Portland, OR) | Helpful Votes: 3 | Rating: 4

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Great author, mediocre book
I feel that Kathryn Harrison is a great author, as I was an instant admirer/fan after reading her novel "The Kiss".

Though I'm not sure if "Thicker Than Water" or "The Kiss" was written first, I found this book to be self-indulgent and repetitive. No matter what order they were written in, they deal with a subject matter all too similar. Perhaps Harrison didn't exercise her demons the first time and decided to take another long-winded stab at it. I give this book four stars because it's very well-written. One star off for pure redundancy. Just my two-cents.

2000-05-04 | Helpful Votes: 2 | Rating: 4

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