Catch How To Forget: A Daughters Memoir Compiled By Kate Mulgrew Expressed As Print

to Forget

Families are messy, They are tender and precious what you work and fight for the tribe that holds the keys to Home, that place from which you run, or to which you return, at a run, or in a reluctant walk, or on a nostalgic shuffle.
You know they have to let you in if you present yourself, however you present yourself, Families give you your first glimpses of how Pairs are going to feature in your life, Love/Hate. Happy/Sad. Hungry/Full. His/Hers. Easy/Difficult. Comfortable/Uncomfortable. Trust/Dont.

Kate Mulgrews book, separated into two parts, the first about Dad, and the second about Mom, Within its pages she describes the love affair that started her parents family, her own natal family, where Capt, Janeway was simply a part she played, one of many, in that means to an end, “a job, ” Like her, I went from one day being as I always had been, the “kid” to fullblown caregiver for my parents as they aged, and passed.
It was easy to follow along Kates story and sympathize, remember and pine, Theres an adjustment when you realize that what you had in your crazy family unit really was unrepeatable, priceless and rare, You wonder if it was enough, is there a way back to it, without giving up what youve gained in the meantime, and one is left at the DeadEnd sign that turns you around, or forces you to create a new way.


I appreciated the authors caring about capturing moments in her writing, and while there were assumptions as to what her muted parents may have been thinking, clearly as their child she was as expert as any human would be on that topic, having spent her childhood memorizing them.
Narratives move an event along, but the moments, carefully presented with all their nooks and crannies are what makes a Tale, complete with sunshine and shadows.
Kate Mulgrew did a very respectable job of this particularly dicey topic, Writing of ones own parents falling apart cannot be an undemanding task, and there are so many ways to lose a willing audience even when it is the truth that is told! She kept me engaged, to the very last word.


I get it, Captain, Life is a worthy struggle, Death is, too.
I read 'Born With Teeth' and looked forward to 'How to Forget' when she announced it, Both memoirs are incredibly well written, Ms Mulgrew has a love of the English language that is astounding, I was glad my EReader has a dictionary,

I work with Seniors, many of whom suffer from Dementia and the Dementia Umbrella, The opportunity to read about a family that dealt with this and get an insite to their thinking was unique, Ms Mulgrew and her siblings dealt with many emotions and conflicts, She tells their story as honestly as she can, She is able to speak with courage and dignity,

I recommend both books, Kate Mulgrew is an actor, She has acted on stage, in the movies, and on television, She may be best known as "Admiral Kathryn Janeway" on the TV show "Star Trek: Voyager" in the late's and currently she's in the cast of "Orange is the New Black".
She is one of those actors who always seems to have a part in something, she's always working, But as with any actor, what you see on the stage or the screen is only a piece of the real person, Her excellent first memoir, "Born With Teeth", published a few years ago, looks at her younger life and first years in her career, She's returned with a new book, "How to Forget: A Daughter's Memoir", which is the story of her parents' deaths, If you're looking for a feelgood book, look elsewhere,

Mulgrew's parents died within a two year period, Her father died three weeks after a diagnosis of metastatic lung cancer, He chose not to take any treatment, preferring not to endure great discomfort simply to prolong his life a month or two, Her mother died at least physically about two years later, after having lived with "atypical Alzheimers" disease for eight years, Those years were terrible both for "Jick" Mulgrew and her surviving six children, Her husband seemed to just go into himself during the years of his wife's illness before his own death, But Jick and Tom Mulgrew, marriedyears and the parents of eight children had devolved into separate lives years before,

Kate Mulgrew spares no one in her story, including herself, She writes about relations with her siblings as they navigate their parents' dying and deaths, She delves into her parents' marriage of two people of opposite natures and the problems within that marriage, Mulgrew's story is an honest look at how siblings deal with their parents' lives, . . and deaths. It's well worth reading.

this is a good read, the vocab impressive, and the author really painted a beautiful picture, a lovely tribute to an eldest daughter's relationship with her parents, however, the entire book felt like exposition, i kept waiting for a secret to come out or the other shoe to drop and it never happened, the author bounced in between memories and the present, sometimes confusing, while this all kept me reading, it was also frustrating, in addition, the author was clearly very wealthy, which made some parts of the book unrelatable because they were so out of the norm, multiple servants, ability to travel at will by limousine or plane, top of the line medical care, fancy hotels, etc, i did enjoy the writing style, i guess i'm just not sure what the thesis of the book was, it seemed more like a collection of stories than a narrative, my favorite part of the book was the long vocab quizlet i made from the book of Words I'll Probably Never Use Actress Kate Mulgrew Star Trek Voyager, Orange Is the New Black follows up her candid and thoughtfulmemoir, BORN WITH TEETH, with an equally forthright and emotionally raw tale of caring for her parents at the end of their lives.


When her father is diagnosed with stagefour cancer that has spread from his lungs to brain stem, liver and kidneys, Mulgrew's return visit to her home state of Iowa is extended indefinitely.
Six years earlier, her mother was diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease and continued living at home thanks to a fulltime caregiver, HOW TO FORGET tenderly chronicles Mulgrew's decision to care for her parents over the last two years of their lives,

With crystal clarity and sharp insight, Mulgrew paints a complicated family portrait as rich and complex as families in Pat Conroy's epic novels, As an adult, Mulgrew sees her parents and siblings with a fresh perspective, She realizes that one of the unspoken tenets of her parents' relationship was "they should never be emotionally vulnerable to each other, that such exposure could only lead to trouble.
" Mulgrew also writes beautifully of the way families are often torn apartrather than unitedby loss, "We longed to reach out to one another, but at every turn this instinct was thwarted, tangled in a web of suspicion and resentment," she writes.
"As much as we had loved one another in the fullness of life, we hated what we had become when that wholeness was eclipsed by loss.
" How to Forget is an unforgettable, tender and loving memoir of acceptance and loss,

Kate Mulgrew's perceptive and beautifully written memoir of caring for her dying parents packs an emotional wallop, Oh captain, my captain! You remain sovereign at your rudder in you private life too, Even in the midst of worst turbulence, when to you, personally, things might seem awfully out of control,

Until now, there were several unavoidable associations that came to my mind when I though of Kate Mulgrew, Stern, but fair Star Trek captain, impossibly beautiful and thick hair remember that scene in her private compartment on Voyager, warm, motherly voice that I could listen whole day.


Well, my wish finally came true in the form of audio book read by her very own self, I mean, what a treat, As expected, the performance is flawless, Lived through from start till the end, of course, because it's about her own life and struggles,

For years, she was almost a mythical being for me, I mean, I grew up through my most intense adolescence with new seasons of Voyager being one of the rare things I could count on, And you know how receptive you are in those formative years to figures of authority, And female beauty. And hair, that impossible hair.

Now, I got to know her as even most impressive character: herself, The subject and the content is better than the execution, At times overwritten e. g. , the word ineffable should only be used once per book, Mulgrew's affection for her parents is huge, and the stories she tells are engaging, She's a compelling entertainer. But the division of the book in two side by side halves left me unclear on the parents' relationship, A structure that was more interwoven, or linear in time, might have served the subjects better, I think the focus Mulgrew was trying for was how she attended the deaths of both her parents, but the heart of the book was her mother, which the structure undermined.


Sometimes Mulgrew was coy with details, especially about her father, and this made it hard to trust her as a narrator, despite declaring herself incapable of lying.
Many of the anecdotes crossed that fine line between too much information and the sharing of hard truths, the distinction between which is at the heart of successful memoir.


Yet in the end, the story of how siblings struggle as parents age, sicken and die, is a moving and universal one that I can particularly relate to right now, and there is much truth and beauty here.
Read this book based on glowing reviews and see many such reviews here, No more than afor me, I love a good memoir but to put this on the same level as “Educated” a truestar would be a travesty, Two very sad accounts of the death of her two parents, A good glimpse into what it must be like to watch a loved one wither away from Alzheimers but not sure that is what people want to experience with the author.
The inside book jacket refers to author uncovering “long kept secrets” and not sure I could I could identify those from my read only that perhaps it refers to Mulgrews relationship with a much older man when she was younger thanthat confused me in its telling and was glossed over in terms of how Mulgrew evaluates that troubling experience now with hindsight.
Not familiar with Mulgrews acting

but likely better than her writing, .