The Sky Isn't Visible from Here: Scenes from a Life

Reading Felicia Sullivan's memoir, The Sky Isn't Visible from Here: Scenes from a Life, was jarring for me.  I "know" Felicia. I don't "know" her in the sense of having drunk coffee (or anything else) with her, but I've been working with her remotely for the better part of a year on some blog-related projects.  When Parent Bloggers Network asked me if I wanted to review her book, I jumped at the chance. What I know of Felicia is her undying optimism, her good cheer.  This was not a particularly cheery book, but it was a poignant one. 

The storyline follows Felicia's childhood (her mother called her, inexplicably, "Lisa," despite Felicia's attempts to get her to use her given name) and her early adulthood.  There are drugs, broken families and education-related successes.  There's a lot of stuff I can't relate to, but there's a lot of stuff I can.  Most of all, the writing is beautiful and tight.  Here's an example of a very profound passage:

I sigh. I've grown used to these questions. Sometimes people ask, Would I find her if I could, don't I want to find her, doesn't she want to be found and forgiven?  As if it's up to me alone to find her. To make mother and daughter whole. People take comfort in these reconciliation stories; they can't manage the black and white of it, the possibility that love can be extinguished, that, when continuously tested, love can dissolve. Love is conditional. People need simple answers from me: that I am filled with regret, that I'm lost without her, that I love her still. I want to explain that the last time I felt safe was when I was nine, before cocaine, before it hurt to love her. With her, love and fear were one and the same, with every kiss came a pinprick, with every hug came a lashing out. My mother was my first hurt.

Wow, eh?  I read that late at night and ran straight into the little angel's room and climbed on the bed next to her and kissed her sleeping red head. 

Here's another amazing passage:

My mother was a screamer.  She was all crescendo.  Even in her sleep she was a woman who had to be heard. In our house, there was only one voice: hers. At night she often padlocked her door shut, and I'd often woke to her cries. Once, I crouched outside her door, but all I could decipher was her pleading "Stop," her begging.  "No," her crying "Please don't leave me."  These episodes were like a storm, breaking with ferocity and passing swiftly.  One night she forgot to lock the door, and as I inched my way in, I could see her face pressed against the pillow, her mouth gaping wide.  There was something fragile about her face, that velvety Noxema skin, the way she nibbled her bottom lip, weedy brows knitted in; she bore no resemblance to the woman who spouted threats, who always reminded you that you were never safe. And for a brief moment I wanted to draw her close to me.

I stood over her, one hand frozen above her sleeping body because it would have been cruel to interrupt her private space, and then I thought of waking her and wondered which of the two actions would be considered less cruel.

There are others.  The narrative jumps around a LOT - I had a hard time following it - but after finding a few gem paragraphs like the ones quoted above, I relaxed and decided Felicia's book is jumpy because her life and memory was, and this, after all, is a memoir.  It's a window into someone's life, and I do love peeking in to people's psyches.  Felicia has learned many harsh lessons in her young life, and I closed the book feeling amazed that this cheerful woman who e-mails me every now and then is the same jaw-dropping writer who penned this book. 

Comments

[felicia Sullivan]

Thank you so much for the very honest and compassionate review!! I'm incredibly flattered that you admired my writing (as I've been a long-time fan of your blog!!) and I definitely get how the structure of the book could be jarring at first. However, I think you are spot on in terms of WHY it needed to move around so much - it demonstrates my disorientation and memory fracture, which started as a child and moved into adulthood. Namely because my mother was so fond of manipulating and altering my memory to a point when it became difficult to discern which was real and which wasn't.

Anyway, I'm blathering on :) Thank you for the very kind review.

Warmly, Felicia

[PunditMom]

I actually ended up deciding that I did not like her book at all. Even if everything she wrote was true, it felt like it was made up. It all rang a false note with me -- I don't know if it was her style of writing or her attitude toward herself and others. I wanted to like her book, but it had too much of a 'Million Little Pieces' feel to me.