My Father’s Glass Eye
Jeannie Vanasco
Category: Memoir & Biography,
My Father’s Glass Eye is Jeannie’s struggle to honour her father, her larger-than-life hero, but also the man who named her after his daughter from a previous marriage, a daughter who died. After his funeral, Jeannie spends the next decade in escalating mania, in and out of hospitals – increasingly obsessed with the other Jeanne.
Obsession turns to investigation as she plumbs her childhood awareness of her dead half-sibling and hunts for clues into the mysterious circumstances of her death. It becomes a puzzle she she must solve to better understand herself and her father.
Jeannie pulls us into her unravelling with such intimacy that her insanity becomes palpable, even logical. A brilliant exploration of the human psyche, My Father’s Glass Eye deepens our definitions of love, sanity, grief, and recovery.
Reviews
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'Hypnotic... a haunting exploration of perception, memory, and the complexities of grief. Vanasco brings to life the father she loved with an almost frightening force' New York Times Book Review
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'Brilliant... as the pages fly by, we’re right by Vanasco, breathlessly experiencing her grief, mania, revelations, and - ultimately - her relief' Entertainment Weekly
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'Wildly innovative' New York Magazine
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'Vanasco explores the intricacies of the human psyche with stunning poignancy' Newsweek
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'A powerful, haunting memoir... a journey that takes Vanasco into the dark depths of her family history, as well as her own psyche, and it shows in an incredibly intimate way the methods we use to cope with loss, disappointment, and grief, and how we can try and make our way out of the darkness and into a place of recovery' NYLON
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'Vanasco's candor, curiosity, and commitment to human understanding are not to be missed' Booklist, starred review
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'A deceptively spare life story that sneaks up and surprises you with its sudden fecundity and power' Kirkus Reviews
