THE STARDUST LOUNGE: Stories from a Boy's Adolescence
Deborah Digges, THE STARDUST LOUNGE: Stories from a Boy's AdolescenceThrough the story of her son's struggle with guns, gangs and school, poet Digges (Vesper Sparrows ) offers solace to other middle-class parents bewildered by teen anger and violence. Unlike similar memoirs, like Martha Tod Dudman's Augusta Gone
and Adair Lara's Hold Me Close, Let Me Go , this book is less likely to have a dual appeal to teens going through something akin to Stephen's "dark years." Digges concedes that while her friends' observations ("I won't give him up and it isn't about me") are true, that knowledge alone isn't enough to help her find a way to reach Stephen. Only after she ends her relationship with Stephen's stepfather and meets an unconventional therapist, who uses knife throwing as one of his healing techniques, are she and Stephen able to begin to build a new life together. By taking in Trevor, a homeless teen, and numerous animals, including Buster, an epileptic bulldog, both mother and son learn to be more tolerant. Despite the therapist's insistence that she let go of the past, Digges is uncomfortable with the "idea that for some children, indeed for Stephen, adolescence is simply a nightmare, a terrible, seemingly unending nightmare." Skipping backwards and forwards in time, Digges tightens the focus on significant moments in her life with Stephen, sometimes neglecting important characters and revelations (e.g., we only learn that Digges married one of the other characters in the book through her author bio). The inclusion of such documents as police reports, a letter to Stephen's attorney and Stephen's homework give this memoir a multilayered effect. Photographs that Stephen took during his teens are sprinkled throughout and reveal how far this sensitive young man, who graduated last year from the Parsons School of Design, has come. (June)
closeDetailsReviewed on: 04/02/2001
Genre: Nonfiction
Hardcover - 228 pages - 978-0-385-50158-3
Open Ebook - 137 pages - 978-0-307-49130-5
Through the story of her son's struggle with guns, gangs and school, poet Digges (
Reviewed on: 04/02/2001
Genre: Nonfiction
Hardcover - 228 pages - 978-0-385-50158-3
Open Ebook - 137 pages - 978-0-307-49130-5
