The Twenty-Seventh Letter of the Alphabet bookcover

The Twenty-Seventh Letter of the Alphabet

A Memoir

Kim Adrian 

(Author)
4.9/5.0
21,000+ Reviews
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Description

Clear-sighted, darkly comic, and tender, The Twenty-Seventh Letter of the Alphabet is about a daughter's struggle to face the Medusa of generational trauma without turning to stone. Growing up in the New Jersey suburbs of the 1970s and 1980s in a family warped by mental illness, addiction, and violence, Kim Adrian spent her childhood ducking for cover from an alcoholic father prone to terrifying acts of rage and trudging through a fog of confusion with her mother, a suicidal incest survivor hooked on prescription drugs. Family memories were buried--even as they were formed--and truth was obscured by lies and fantasies.

In The Twenty-Seventh Letter of the Alphabet Adrian tries to make peace with this troubled past by cataloguing memories, anecdotes, and bits of family lore in the form of a glossary. But within this strategic reckoning of the past, the unruly present carves an unpredictable path as Adrian's aging mother plunges into ever-deeper realms of drug-fueled paranoia. Ultimately, the glossary's imposed order serves less to organize emotional chaos than to expose difficult but necessary truths, such as the fact that some problems simply can't be solved, and that loving someone doesn't necessarily mean saving them.

Product Details

PublisherUniversity of Nebraska Press
Publish DateOctober 01, 2018
Pages304
LanguageEnglish
TypeBook iconPaperback / softback
EAN/UPC9781496201973
Dimensions9.2 X 7.8 X 0.8 inches | 0.9 pounds

About the Author

Kim Adrian is the author of Sock and the editor of The Shell Game: Writers Play with Borrowed Forms (Nebraska, 2018).

Reviews

"The Twenty-Seventh Letter of the Alphabet astonishes from 'A' all the way to the end. Funny, sad, unassuming, wise--exquisitely written--it will make you laugh, cry, wonder, and hope. You (and your vocabulary) will be the better for reading this beautiful book."--Dinah Lenney, author of The Object Parade -- (3/3/2018 12:00:00 AM)
"[Adrian's] glossary, in making a place for everything, has provided a way through this harrowing tale of the toll of generational trauma. That she has managed this with generosity, honesty, and insight shows she has become a real writer after all."--Kate Martin Rowe, Los Angeles Review of Books-- (11/16/2018 12:00:00 AM)
"A stunning merger of form and content; a remarkable portrait-becomes-self-portrait; and something like a master class in complicity."--David Shields, author of Reality Hunger-- (3/3/2018 12:00:00 AM)
"A vivid, vibrant glossary of a life. Adrian's sharp prose and unique form combine to illustrate how powerfully our childhoods reverberate throughout our lives."--Dinty W. Moore, author of Between Panic and Desire-- (3/3/2018 12:00:00 AM)
"Kim Adrian's The Twenty-Seventh Letter of the Alphabet is an intimate portrait of the chaos and confusion of her mother's mental illness. It's also a deep meditation on storytelling itself--our desire to impose order, discover meaning, heal what is broken in us, and find a way to live with what can't be fixed. Innovative in form and comprised of razor-sharp vignettes, Adrian summons a rare, hard-won compassion for both her mother and herself."--Steve Edwards, author of Breaking into the Backcountry-- (3/3/2018 12:00:00 AM)
"Kim Adrian's portrait of her mother--a woman who inflicts considerable damage, having had plenty done to her--is darkly comic, probing, and full of compassion. This memoir unfolds in the startling form of a glossary: an A-to-Z of key words that have shaped Adrian's coming-to-terms with family and its mysteries. The Twenty-Seventh Letter of the Alphabet is altogether remarkable."--Martha Cooley, author of Guesswork: A Reckoning With Loss-- (3/3/2018 12:00:00 AM)
"Out of a fragmented, deeply moving, and dazzling narrative, the author pieces together [a] hard-won love, made possible by her refusal to give up. Many books are described as 'brave'--this one really is."--Sue William Silverman, author of The Pat Boone Fan Club: My Life as a White Anglo-Saxon Jew-- (3/3/2018 12:00:00 AM)
"This is desperately serious work, an exacting memoir that excavates, with compassion for all involved, the harrowingly repetitive patterns of abuse as well as moments of something like hope, crushable and delicate, thwarted, and yet renewable. An agonized, beautiful, unflinching account." --Lee Upton, author of Visitations: Stories-- (3/3/2018 12:00:00 AM)

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