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Authors: Laura Flynn

Tags: #Biography & Autobiography, #Personal Memoirs, #Family & Relationships, #Siblings

Swallow the Ocean (21 page)

BOOK: Swallow the Ocean
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I tell my mother the story. She smiles at me. This is the kind of story she likes. I look down under the lacquer table, and see her foot in slightly worn heels gently lifting my own and setting it to bounce.

Russ, Laura, Amy, and Sara in 1976

Acknowledgments

DURING THE SIX YEARS I worked on this book, many people encouraged and supported me. I am grateful to them all. Nina Goldman, Cindy Shearer and John Curtis talked, listened and sustained me when I first began to write. The University of Minnesota Creative Writing Program, The Loft Mentorship Program and the Fishtrap Imnaha Writers’ Retreat provided strong writing communities. Thanks to John Witte, editor of the
Northwest Review
, for originally publishing portions of chapter nineteen (in a different form).

Patricia Hampl coaxed me to care about every word. Charlie Baxter told me it was done when I needed to hear it. Julie Schumacher, Madelon Sprengnether, and Patricia Weaver Francisco gave critical feedback, advice, and encouragement. Readers and writing companions Rachel Moritz, Amanda Coplin, Brian Malloy, Jennine Crucet, Ann McDuffie and Sari Fordham spurred me on. Special thanks to Joni Tevis for riding to the rescue, along with David Bernardy, at the eleventh hour.

I am indebted to Maria Massie for confidently shepherding this book into the publishing world, to Amy Scheibe for beautiful editing under difficult circumstances, to Beth Partin for painstaking care of the manuscript, and to Nicole Caputo for the gorgeous cover. Thanks to everyone at Counterpoint for believing in good books, and for their enthusiasm and hard work on behalf of this one, especially Jack Shoemaker, Charlie Winton, Roxanna Aliaga, Sharon Donovan, and Abbye Simkowitz.

I could not have written this book without the love and support of my family. To Jeni Flynn I am grateful for many years of excellent step-mothering––and especially for putting a roof over my head during the first nine months of writing. Thanks to Joe Keith for telling me stories about Paris, Lisa Adelson for standing by me all those years, and Lee Flynn for unflagging enthusiasm for this project.

My father, Russell Flynn read drafts even when it pained him, made sure I got all the dates and numbers right, and always, always believed I was a writer. My sisters, Sara and Amy, have given me a lifetime of solidarity. I am grateful beyond words to all three of them for sharing their memories, letting me tell this story, and for tolerating with grace this appalling invasion into their privacy.

And finally, to my husband Mike Rollin who raised my spirits for the final push, and suggested the title––everything is better when you are here.

SWALLOW THE OCEAN

Reading Group Guide

1.
Swallow the Ocean
begins with scenes from the author’s early childhood, when the family is still intact, before Sally’s illness took hold. Why do you think the author chose to begin her story then?

2. What do you think of the title,
Swallow the Ocean?
What role do images of water play in the narrative?

3. The narrative of
Swallow the Ocean
shifts in perspective between a child’s-eye view and that of an adult looking back on her past. How are these shifts achieved, and what effect do they have?

4. How does Laura’s relationship with her mother evolve through the course of the narrative?

5. Each of the three sisters has a different experience of, and reaction to, Sally’s illness. How would you characterize each girl’s unique experience, and what accounts for the differences between them?

6. What impact do you think the time and place in which the Flynn family lived had on the outcome of this story? Did it contribute to Sally’s illness? What about her husband’s understanding of that illness, and other people’s perceptions of it?

7. Flynn’s father faced an uphill battle in the courts of the 1970s as a father trying to gain custody of his children. Has this changed? Could this story be repeated today?

8. The medical term “paranoid schizophrenia” is used only a few times in the memoir. Do you think this is intentional?

9. Imagination plays a central role in this story. Sally’s retreat into her world is paralleled by her daughters’ retreat into their imaginative world. What do you think this says about the risks and the protection offered by looking inward?

10. Toward the end of the book, Flynn writes, “Some things we come with, some we are given.” What do you think she is referring to? What traits do you think the three girls came with? What were they given?

11. At the end of the memoir, Sally Flynn remains completely unmedicated, despite having been diagnosed with schizophrenia. What do you think about this? In weighing the need for treatment against the need to protect the rights of the mentally ill, where should the balance lie? Who should decide?

12. Has reading
Swallow the Ocean
changed your understanding of mental illness? If so, in what ways?

BOOK: Swallow the Ocean
10.84Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

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