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Memoris and Biographies
David Siff Arts and Literature English
Author: David Siff
ISBN: 037540175X
Subcategory: Arts & Literature
Pages 272 pages
Publisher Knopf; Stated First Edition edition (August 22, 2000)
Language English
Category: Memoris and Biographies
Rating: 4.5
Votes: 166
ePUB size: 1480 kb
FB2 size: 1699 kb
DJVU size: 1279 kb
Other formats: azw lrf mbr lit

eBook Eleanor's Rebellion: A Mother, Her Son, and Her Secret download

by David Siff

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Eleanor's Rebellion is the extraordinary story of a man who discovered in middle age that almost nothing he had grown up believing about his parents was true has been added to your Cart.

Eleanor's Rebellion is the extraordinary story of a man who discovered in middle age that almost nothing he had grown up believing about his parents was true. When at the age of forty David Siff learned-in the first of a series of shocks-that he was adopted has been added to your Cart.

Eleanor's Rebellion book. Eleanor's Rebellion" is the remarkable story of a son and his mother, his out-of-wedlock birth, his adoption, the discovery of his real father, and the revelations about his mother's life and his own. 19 photos.

In 1975, when David Siff was 40 years old, his world turned upside down. Secrets, lies and birth certificates. com User, October 3, 2000. Not only was he adopted, he learned, he was adopted by his own birth mother.

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She had written all through her infant and junior years and on into her teens, the stories changing from children's adventures to torrid gypsy passions Mildred.

She had written all through her infant and junior years and on into her teens, the stories changing from children's adventures to torrid gypsy passions Mildred married very young and became a housewife.

When she was aged ten her brother Edward left England for India and later Australia. However, after being befriended by Clara and Adelaide Biddle she was much taken by acting

When she was aged ten her brother Edward left England for India and later Australia. However, after being befriended by Clara and Adelaide Biddle she was much taken by acting. For three years she took minor acting roles, which supported both her and her mother, However, her interest in acting began to wane as she began to write. It was to be her true vocation. In 1860, Mary met John Maxwell, a publisher of periodicals. By the next year they were living together

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On this site it is impossible to download the book, read the book online or get the contents of a book. The administration of the site is not responsible for the content of the site. The data of catalog based on open source database. All rights are reserved by their owners. Download book Eleanor's rebellion : a mother, her son, and her secret, David Siff.

A Mother, Her Son, and Her Secret. A son's honest and unsparing tribute to his mother†and the choices she made on his behalf.

Eleanor's Rebellion is the extraordinary story of a man who discovered in middle age that almost nothing he had grown up believing about his parents was true.When at the age of forty David Siff learned--in the first of a series of shocks--that he was adopted, he began a roller-coaster journey into his family's past. He discovered that his biological father was not the man who had raised him, but someone he had never met: the actor Van Heflin. He discovered that he had been born out of wedlock, placed in an orphanage at birth, and subsequently adopted by his own mother. He learned that his mother had not been the contented homebody he had believed her to be. He discovered the ambitions and frustrations of the woman who had given  birth to him--the  adventurous, rebellious young Eleanor, in determined pursuit of a new and better world and an acting career, who suddenly detoured into marriage for the sake of her child. He discovered the roots of his puzzling behaviors, casting his own acting career in a new light.In his account of the fascinating and rocky process by which he finally came to know his mother--moving from shock to bitterness to an increasingly profound appreciation of her life--David Siff has given us a heartfelt and enriching book.
Skiletus
This book was exceedingly well-written and seemed very honest, true to the time periods in which the story took place, had some humor and light-heartedness, all the while telling the poignant story of the author's mother, Eleanor, who bore him illegitimately but refused to give him up as the times and her family situation dictated, and so she consented to marry a man who loved her enough to keep her secret and together they "adopted" him and began a rather conventional life. The author was a somewhat difficult child (aren't we all?), raised in a somewhat dysfunctional family (aren't they all?), but the love and devotion were always freely given and freely taken. The story told here is absorbing and is told in an elegant fashion, but then the tone changed so drastically during the last 70 or so pages that I ended up finishing the book with a bad taste in my mouth. Turns out the boy--now a 40 year old man with a family of his own-- finds out about his birth and can't handle the fact that his mother was not truthful with him about who his real father was (or is that sperm-donor?) . . . So he does what most self-absorbed people do in one way or another, only he does it in spades. He drinks, shop-lifts, quits his profession, plays around on his wife, fathers an illegitimate child of his own (with whom he never has any contact), finally leaves his wife and children, and above all, is downright mean to his mother, the woman who basically gave up her future in order to keep this child. He is mean to her for the rest of her life and I find this so profoundly sad that I guess I am having trouble focusing on the book/story as an item to be reviewed, rather than an issue to be dealt with. My lingering question is: how could a woman (the Eleanor of the title), a daughter of immigrant parents, be so selfless and at the same time raise a boy/man who feels his perceptions/feelings/right to know/ supercede anyone else's feelings/right to privacy/right to live their own life? And what makes him think that the world revolves around him and his so-called problems rather than, say, the possible problems of the child he refused to acknowledge? Where did this profound selfishness come from? That said, I guess a book review should not take issue with the subject or tone of a book, and so I will say that in my opinion the book was well written, easy to read, but again proves that the secret adoptions of the early part of the 20th century did virtually no one any good. So sad.
Kajikus
I don't think I've ever read a more honest memoir covering such difficuly material. The author is unsurpassed in describing both his own, often bad, behaviors and the tough material of his family's life. Moreover, he shows very clearly what knowing "the truth" about family secrets can and cannot do.

I have studied what is called "the intergenerational transmission of trauma" and this book describes one form of it better than anything I've ever read. I also found the author's style to be both learned and lucid, often bringing in material from various experts in the field. I recommend it to anyone who has had to deal with family secrets or trauma, either in one's own life or as a professional.
BOND
Eleanors Rebellion is an amazing story of a mother and as importantly her son. Well written and a full of very interesting characters. That it is a true story makes it all the more interesting.
Katius
i'm still trying to figure out why it took 31/2 weeks to ship.
i needed it for a specific purpose- and it took too long to be useful
Juce
An interesting story might lurk in "Eleanor's Rebellion," but a lot of it is lost in poor editing. This book is ruined by run-on sentences that point to the wrong objects, use of parentheses when another sentence would work better, and switching from past to present tense and back to past again David, the author (and protagonist) studied writing in college, but it's not evident in his book. The narrative sounds as though he recited into a tape recorder but did not tighten his sentences upon transcription. He discusses a scene and then goes back in time, and then jumps back to the present. He discusses wonderful photographs, which aren't included in the book. He also misuses a lot of long words in cases in which diminutive words would suffice. I was unable to read more than twenty pages at a time without cursing the editor. A final note on the format: the font used (for the first edition hardcover) is hard on the reader, in that commas look a lot like semicolons. This makes many hard-to-read sentences even harder to interpret.
David was put up for adoption by his biological mother, who visited him in the orphanage and who adopted him before his second birthday. David blames much of his life on the lie his mother told him. He cites journal reports of problems in other orphans of his time. He doesn't delve into his mother's obvious emotional problems that he might have inherited, nor does he discuss how his use of LSD might have led to some of his problems.
In the book, he is obsessed with the biological father he never knew. Perhaps some of his problems do stem from that. However, since he didn't know that he was adopted until he was middle-aged, he seems to mislay the blame of his apathy on this deep dark family secret. Instead of a victim, he comes off as a whiny brat.
David professes love for his wife when they first meet, but seems almost indifferent in her throughout the book - and in his children and siblings.
Again, I feel that a great story lies in "Eleanor's Rebellion," but the author is clearly not a writer. A spell check and a thesaurus do not an author make. There is no passion in a subject that always seems to be enveloped in enchantment.
The best virtue of this book would be its ability to teach. A high school composition teacher would do well to give copies to a freshman class to edit and correct. I may contact my high school comp. teacher; I think that he would enjoy the challenge.
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