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    The Long Journey Home: A Memoir
    The Long Journey Home: A Memoir
    The Long Journey Home: A Memoir
    Audiobook13 hours

    The Long Journey Home: A Memoir

    Written by Margaret Robison

    Narrated by Debra Monk

    3/5

    ()

    About this audiobook

    The mother of best-selling memoirists Augusten Burroughs and John Elder Robison, Margaret Robison offers her own version of the events so famously chronicled in her sons' much-talked about works. From one view, Margaret and her husband John's life together began with a sheen of normality: he a successful academic and she an artist, poet, and mother. But when John turns to the bottle, and Margaret sinks farther and farther into mental illness, the cracks in their lives threaten to consume their fragile family.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherRecorded Books, Inc.
    Release dateJul 22, 2011
    ISBN9781461813538
    The Long Journey Home: A Memoir

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    • 4/5
      The first two chapters seemed haphazard and disorganized. The first chapter had introduced so many people I didnt know who was going to be important to the story and who wasnt...very confusing. Enjoyed the detailed descriptions; almost like works by Annie Proulx in that regard. The book itself was too much information. Part 2 reads much faster than Part 1 mostly because she ried to ram everything prson and evry event that ever happened in the first 20 years or so of her life into one half of the book. We only needed to know her childhood sucked, so did her marriage and she wasn't a great mother. If she wanted to include all this information she should have written two books. The second part was far more interesting because she took her time with it and didn't try to cram the rest of her life into 75 pages.Her mental illness while prevalant in the book should have been the main focus as opposed to her writing. Not that there was anything wrong with her writing it was just that as soon as she drew you in to her pychosis or problems with her psychiartrist Dr. Turcotte or her stroke she would throw in some less detailed information about how writing helped her. In the end it seemed she wrote a book about herself for herself.It wasn't a bad book it was just poorly edited and really didn't need to try to be everything to everyone. Had she focused on her mental and physical illnesses it would have been much better, but all the background information and criticism of her son at the end was just self serving.
    • 5/5
      Everyone has a story. Margaret Robison’s story took many years to tell. Her sons (Augusten Burroughs and John Elder Robison) told only bits and pieces of her story in telling their own stories. Margaret used poetry to share glimpses of her thoughts and feelings, but poetry is just that: glimpses. Here in her memoir, Margaret Robison is able to tell her own very emotional story.Margaret’s childhood in the 1950s was a different world than the world today. However, even then it was a facade. It was not the life that it appeared to be, setting the stage for many of Margaret’s later struggles. The difficult societal changes following the 1950s were challenging enough. Add to that Margaret’s turmoil in dealing with issues of alcoholism and mental illness, not only as a woman, but as a wife and mother.Margaret is open about her battles and her feelings. Her memoir is difficult to read in its honesty and its poignancy. Yet it is beautifully told and ultimately inspirational.Indeed it was a long journey for Margaret, but I believe she is finally “Home”.
    • 1/5
      I have not read Running with Scissors or Look Me In The Eye. Therefore, this is my first look at the Robison family. I found the book to be extremely self-indulgent. Margaret is not able to accept blame for anything in her life; rather she spends most of the book blaming others for her problems. First her mom, then her husband, then her therapist. I also found myself thinking that she was neglecting her children. I don't know any parent who would just accept that their 15 year old son was having an affair with a 30 year old man. While the writing style isn't bad, the plot-line is slow and rambling. Overall, I could not recommend this book to anyone.
    • 3/5
      I first read about Margaret Robison when reading her son, Augusten Burrough's memoir "Running with Scissors", and later John Robison's "Look Me in the Eye". this memoir is Ms. Robison's side of the story, and it is told with elegance that belie a powerful honesty, as she survives many visits to the mental hospital. I usually do not like Memoirs, and when I noticed that this book from the library was a memoir, I almost took it back. But this one does not whine and moan and complain; she states what happened, and leaves the reader to their own emotions. The one question that I had was "who's memoir is more accurate?' Then I realized that if my dysfunctional family wrote their memoirs each would be different, remembering what was important, emotionally painful, or relevant. Even in the bible, Matthew, Mark, Luke and John wrote of the same things, but differently. Also, having misunderstood my own mother during her lifetime, the book I would have written at one time would be different, and less kinder, than a later book, when an understanding of HER life was known. There has been some criticism of Ms. Robison seeming to be less emotional, or less of a writer than her son's, but taking that into account, this book makes an excellent addition to the family's books in understanding mental illness and the effects on each individual..
    • 2/5
      As a fan of both Augusten Burrough’s and John Elder Robison’s books, I was eager to read their mother, Margaret Robison’s memoir, A Long Journey Home. I hoped to gain some understanding of her perspective and some insight into how their lives turned out as they did. Unfortunately, I did not enjoy reading this memoir, and found it both frustrating and sad. I was frustrated by the author’s writing style, which was more a list of recollections rather than the memoir of a poet. Maybe this is a generational problem, but I was constantly infuriated with her inability to stand up for herself against her husband or her father in law, and her failure to defend and protect her children or to find a way out of the messes in her life. I only made it halfway through the book before I began to skim through the chapters. But I read with great interest the last chapter, shocked that she could insist that her son’s book was filled with blatant lies, particularly in light of her mental instability. I’m sad to say that the author comes across as very passive and weak willed, confused and self-absorbed. She fails not only to take any responsibility for her part in their crazy lives, but fails to even allow for the possibility that her children suffered from her neglect. It is a terrible thing for a child to grow up abused or neglected, and an even more terrible thing for the adults in their lives to deny that the events took place. This book was not the revelation or the well written memoir I expected, and while I felt some sympathy for the emotional turmoil she suffered, Ms. Robison’s version of her life as victim upset me as both a woman and a mother.
    • 2/5
      I requested this book from the Early Reviewers program because of my interest in Augusten Burroughs work and my reading of John Elder Robison. Since I grew up in Western Mass and had family from Northampton and Amherst my original interest started with this link. Margaret's book was interesting in spots but overall left a bad taste with me. Readers get a glimpse in her life from childhood to recent times. The areas that were most readable and interesting to me were actually her recovery from a stroke and not the times of her psychosis and times that coincide with Burroughs books. I find it hard to believe that she remembers so much detail about things that took place during a psychotic episode and not others. She just does not come off as a very likable person, too much woe is me. Robison ends her memoir by defending herself against Burroughs books and how she is portrayed in them. It seems like a very defensive attack on her son and not the best way to end her book. If she had placed this tirade early on and got it out of the way and focused the rest of the work on her life and her words I think I would have been more apt to give a higher rating and better review. By ending the way she did it makes me believe that the book was solely written as a rebuttal to Running with Scissors and in self defense, though she makes a point to let it be known that she started writing her memoir first. If that's the case then what took so long to get it out?
    • 3/5
      I came to this book, THE LONG JOURNEY HOME, with high hopes. That was probably my first mistake, because my eager anticipation was not rewarded. In fact I nearly put the book aside after reading the first fifty pages or so, because the first section about Robison's childhood is stultifyingly slow and not very interesting. But I stayed with the book, and should probably admit that those first rather boring pages with their intimations of the author's own dysfunctional and strange southern family (the Richters) were probably necessary to at least partially explain Margaret Richter Robison's own nearly lifelong struggle with mental illness and psychotic breakdowns that often left her hospitalized.The pace of the narrative picked up considerably when the author left home for college and met her future husband, John Robison, who came from an equally dysfunctional background and was already something of a mental mess when the two met. The fact that he physically and emotionally abused her and threatened suicide even before they married should have been a plain warning to Margaret Richter that this union was not a good idea and doomed to failure. But this was the 1950s, and to her parents, John Robison, who was after all studying for the ministry, was considered a "good catch." And so they married. And the abuse and erratic behavior patterns and threats of suicide continued throughout their marriage of more than twenty years. The obvious question is Why did she stay, and why so long? Once again, the answer to this is deceptively simple: it was the 50s. And back then marriage really was serious business and the American mindset was that the husband was right, and was in charge. And wives were there to support their men and to make the best of whatever the situation was. Try reading Anne Roiphe's recent memoir ART AND MADNESS, about an incredibly abusive relationship and marriage she endured with her first husband for several years - because he was an aspiring writer, a playwright she admired tremendously for his potential, for his talent. Women were not part of the literary crowd back then, so she tried to live her life through him. It didn't work, of course. But it was the 50s, so she tried. The difference between this book and the Roiphe book is the writing. Anne Roiphe is an incredibly gifted writer. Margaret Robison - despite what she may believe abour her own talent - is not. She's not even a particularly good writer. Spread throughout the narrative she makes frequent references to her writing and her poetry and her writing groups and workshops and MFA in creative writing, but my God, her style is often just excruciatingly boring, dwelling on every minute detail of what she did, thought and felt. A helpful editor would have been nice. She is supposedly, a "published poet," and there are a few lines of her "poetry" noted here and there. If these snippets are characteristic, then she would appear to be of the "butterflies-and-flowers-and tra-la-la-la-la" school of verse. And yet here I am giving this book a 3-star rating. Well, it's not because of the writing; it's because of the morbidly compelling quantity of all the horrible things that happened to her in her life. The beatings and abuse at the hands of her crazy-but-functional husband; the multiple psychotic episodes and even more abuse perpetrated by her apparently crazy-but-functional psychotherapist, Dr Turcotte; the problems of being a mother in this whole awful home situation, with a couple of very "different" kids to boot. And there was her struggle with her own sexual identity from the time she was a teenager. It never did become clear whether she was a lesbian, bisexual, or what. And she also told of her stroke and the struggle to battle back from that. All of these elements, I must shamefacedly admit, kept me turning the pages, although I often found myself skimming much of the text which was, as I said, badly in need of an astute editor.Here's the thing. I looked forward to this memoir because I'd read her sons' books - Augusten Burroughs' RUNNING WITH SCISSORS and A WOLF AT THE TABLE, and John Elder Robison's LOOK ME IN THE EYE. I enjoyed all three of these well-written memoirs, particularly the latter. I mistakenly believed that a book by their mother would be equally good. It was not. It was a compelling story, but the writing was too often exasperatingly self-pitying, self-serving and just plain bad. She felt compelled, toward the end of her book to contradict certain points that Burroughs had made in his memoirs. But given her multiple breakdowns, heavy medications and just generally loopy, self-centered behavior, even in her own words, I'm somewhat skeptical of what she says about the Burroughs books. I found nothing in THE LONG JOURNEY HOME that gives much proof of her sterling mothering skills or instincts. The truth is, this whole family was just a mess in so many ways that reading about them was, as I think I commented on one of the Burroughs books, "like watching a human train wreck."Having said all this, I still would not be too surprised if this book sells like hotcakes. The writing stinks, but that's true of many bestsellers. Margaret Robison's sons are both pretty talented writers. I'm sad I can't say that about her, and this not-very-literary "rebuttal" to their books. Were it not for their success, I doubt this book would even have been published. I feel sorry for Margaret Robison and the often miserable life she has apparently lived, but as for her writing skills? Nope.
    • 3/5
      I requested this book due to loving both "Dry" and "Running With Scissors" written by her son and I thought this would allow me to see these same stories from a different perspective. In retrospect, I wasn't really looking for additional story insight, but more of Augusten's telling of the stories.That being confessed, I have to say the book did not hold my interest very well. The first two or three chapters felt disjointed and hard to follow and I was hard pressed to make myself care.Later, in part 2 of the book, I felt the writing got more focused and generally better, but I still felt there were fluency problems.I'm wondering how many people will buy this book because of their love of Augusten's work and then how many, like me, will find it disappointing to find her bitter towards him at the end of the book.
    • 3/5
      I wanted to enjoy this book more than I did. But Robison's memoir never seemed very cohesive and didn't draw me in. Particularly in the second half of the book, she seems to shift gears from recounting her life to defending herself and the family against the accusations that her son, Augusten Burroughs, has leveled against her and the family in his writings. She seems to have had a fascinating life, but the book could have wrapped it up in a tighter package.
    • 4/5
      I read much (maybe half?) of “Running with Scissors” a number of years ago. I had to put it down because some of the details made me sick to my stomach. True or not, it was too much for me…the details so extreme that I didn’t want to believe those things had happened.Enough time has passed, apparently, that when I read that Augusten Burroughs’s mother had a memoir as well, I had to pick it up and see where the accounts meshed and what details were up for debate.While some of the details may be different, the highly toxic and completely dysfunctional home life seems to be a surety…and true back into author Margaret Robison’s childhood as well. Nearly all of her family members (and some family friends) seem to be either suicidal, psychotic or emotionally damaged in some way. Her relationship with her mother seems to be the most difficult for her.“I was in desperate need of help, especially with taking care of Chris, but Mother’s emotional neediness was a constant drain on me. And the relationship that we’d created was one constructed with careful censorship. Clothed in southern manners and restraint, it was like a large and brittle clay container covered cracks. Filled to the brim with all our unspoken feelings, it was bound to break apart.”Her marriage to John Robison seems doomed from almost the moment it begins, with him threatening suicide should she ever leave him and speaking a gibberish language whenever she tried to address anything he did not want to talk about.This toxic relationship then leads to further unhappiness and an unhealthy environment for her children. Some days, too depressed to move, she says goodbye to her children from her bed.“Have a good day at school.” “Bye, Mom.” “He (Chris/Augusten) turned and left my room, walked down the hall and out the front door, to wait at the bottom of the drive for the school bus. (Over thirty years later he will tell me how abandoned he felt, how terribly alone. He will spew out his rage and pain, and I will listen to the man in whom the small boy still hurts.)”Some scenes made me shake my head, like the one in which 15-year old Chris tells his mother that he is sleeping with an adult friend of Margaret’s therapist. Which, turns out, the therapist had already told her…and also told her that she risked losing her son if she did anything about it. So her reaction is…nothing. Her son has been and will be statutorily raped by an adult, and she does nothing. After that conversation, she says that “Life continued as always…” but that “somehow, nothing was the same after that night.” Which seems more than a slight understatement as she does nothing to protect her child when he tells her, albeit supposedly excitedly, that he is being molested by an adult.After that, I started to lose patience. True, I have no experience with serious mental illness or deep depression to base my feelings on, but when I read about parents whose children need to become the adults, whatever the reason may be, I tend to get very angry. Later, she gets police protection from her therapist…which seems a good choice given his treatment of her…but this is while her son is staying/living there and AFTER…”That past October, John and I had signed papers making Dr. Turcotte Chris’s legal guardian in order to make it possible for him to attend school in Northampton, rather than in Amherst, where he felt suicidal. We didn’t expect him to attend school over in Northampton, but we were hoping he would be able to drop out of school when he reached the legal age of 16.”Robison is seeking police protection from the man whom she has made her son’s legal guardian, does not go get him from there, and is hoping he will drop out of school.I realize that sounds sarcastic and mean…and as I said, I haven’t experienced anything that either she or her son did, but I can’t help but be angry. Towards whom, it’s almost too hard to say as most of the influences in all of these lives seem to be incredibly negative and damaging. I suppose I feel angry at and empathetic for nearly everyone in these two memoirs. I still have no idea whom or what to believe except that none of the people I’ve now read about had pleasant lives.There is some beauty in all of this pain and negativity though, and I keep coming back to a passage where Margaret is describing an adult friend from her childhood. To me, it seems more descriptive of Margaret herself, and clarifies much of how the story of her life is told.“Though she spoke of many hurtful experiences, they had happened to her so long ago that they had shaped themselves into stories, edges smoothed like pieces of broken glass tumbled by the sea. She had a storyteller’s gift, and the forms that she created for holding the stories of her life also enabled me to hold them. No matter how great the loss or deep the grief, her stories satisfied a need in me, and ignited my imagination more than they distressed me.”
    • 2/5
      Having never read the books by her sons, I went into this memoir blind. I felt like I stayed that way as the author rambled and felt disjointed. It was an extremely difficult read.
    • 3/5
      Having read Augusten Burroughs memoir, I was curious to see his mothers memoir, “The Long Journey Home”. Since I found “Running With Scissors” a rather disturbing book and one I have been cautious to whom I recommended it to, I knew Margaret’s story would be a difficult one. Many others have been critical of Margaret saying she is trying to justify her actions or that her description of life doesn’t really gel with her sons books. Everyone has their take on their life and even siblings raised in the same house will remember things differently. I read her story with an open mind wanting to hear her side of the story and try to understand her feelings. It is helpful to read how she perceived her upbringing and how her parents treated her. I am sure her mother would feel she was misunderstood by Margaret also. That being said, I do feel a respect for Margaret that she has been able to overcome so many obstacles and remain positive. Mental illness is after all a disease of the brain and maybe some of her memories or stories are eschewed but they are how she remembers them. I did find the writing choppy and sometimes hard to follow. It took me several weeks to finish because it was a hard story to want to read about and sometimes the story seems to drag. I am glad I read it and felt much more positive at the end than I did with “Running With Scissors”.Margaret’s story is one you should read if you want to understand mental illness especially if you have someone in your life that is affected with it. The lesson I think you can take from this book is that we must embrace who we are, be true to ourselves and respect others for who they are.
    • 3/5
      Her son's two memoirs, one about growing up in the absolute definition of a dysfunctional family, and the other about overcoming his alcoholism, took difficult and terrible events and transformed them into art. His mother's book took many of the same events and put them down on a page. It's not artful, not insightful, and not even much of a window into her own feelings.She's like an automaton in her own life, with no sense of personal agency and, worst of all, her children, both immensely talented, come off as afterthoughts. Where are they? Who are they? Why are you letting this crazy psychologist ruin all of your lives?No wonder Augusten changed his name. I'm sorry to be so critical, both of her personality and her writing, but this book was just infuriating. I'm giving it 3 stars only because it moved along, and because Burrough's books made me curious to see what his mother was like.
    • 3/5
      Many of us have read Ms. Robison's sons' memoirs on growing up in their highly dysfunctional family. Long Journey Home is their mother's response. The book is a bit choppy and chaotic, but there are moments throughout that remind you that the author is a poet - landscape or moments vividly described in unexpected language.My problem with all three books is personal and derives from my difficulty in answering some questions for myself: At what point does memoir about family become cathartic and illuminating and at what point is it all about an axe to grind in a highly public forum? Does that even matter? I'm always somewhat squirmy when families parade their dysfunction and even squirmier when it becomes their own little cottage industry as is the case with this family. Where is the line between explication and public revenge?I confess that this memoir made me cringe more often than it enchanted me with its language, but all three memoirs combined inform an interesting discussion about the purpose of memoir, its definitions, and its place in a family's history. That's a worthwhile discussion to have in this age of public confession.
    • 3/5
      I should state first that I am a huge fan of both of this author's well known sons, Augusten Burroughs and John Elder Robison. Both have shared stories of what can only be described as a massively dysfunctional and wildly unconventional upbringing. I wondered for years about the life experiences their parents had endured during their own formative years, and how that shaped the way they raised their own two very talented sons. Ms. Robison is a talented writer, leaving no doubt in my mind that her sons both inherited the basis for their exceptional writing talents from Mother. I think the book was a bit long, as it didn't hold my attention totally. Sometimes events were detailed verbosely, other times glossed over. Even though much of the story is dark and somewhat painful to read, I found that it was not a depressing book. Do I believe that her view of family problems and her relationship with her sons is the true one? I believe that she thinks she is setting the record straight. Perhaps that will be enough for her.While I am glad I read the book, I can't say it answered any questions for me.
    • 3/5
      Received this book in April from LibraryThing Early Reviewers. I had just finished The Glass Castle by Jeanette Walls, which was excellent and was anxious to read this book in comparison. I never really understood the issues that she had with her mother. Having been through the mother-daughter relationship both as a daughter and as a mother I failed to see the behaviors there that would as the author put it "drove her crazy". The relationship with her husband would have driven anybody insane and realizing that this was in the 50s and 60s it is more understandable that she stayed. The most disturbing segment of the book was the author's relationship with her psychiatrist, Dr. Turcotte. The sessions that she and her husband had and her involvement with the doctor and his staff and family was very bizarre. I thought her details of how everything ended with Dr. Turcotte were incomplete. I did enjoy reading about her recovery from her stroke. What seems to be thrown in at the last is her defense of her mothering skills to Chris (Augusten Burroughs) who wrote Running with Scissors. Having read about her bouts with mental illness, her psychotic depression and her abusive relationship with her husband I would be more inclined to believe Burroughs version of things.
    • 3/5
      This was an Early Reviewer book. I have not read the books by her sons but they are on my to- read pile. The book was both sad and disturbing. It took me some time to get through it as the author seemed to ramble on about insignificant things. It did not have an easy flow - felt there was a lot of gaps.
    • 3/5
      Margaret Robison’s memoir, "A Long Journey Home", was a journey to read. Much of her writing was disjointed and, at times, hard to follow. She rambled on, obsessing over minute details that lacked substance. For any novelist, there is a fine balance between giving too much detail and not giving enough. Robison erred on the side of too much information. Sometimes her writing was calm and clear, but most of the time it jumped erratically from thought to thought.The thing that made this novel hard to read, was the fact that Ms. Robison failed to adequately portray, “her side of the story”. As it reads, I found myself asking, “what about your kids”. As a teen, her son, Chris, appeared to be all but forgotten. Neither of the kids had a stable parent. Yet Robison does not take responsibility for how she negatively affected her children. There is no remorse and no apology. Robison notes over and over how her memory was affected by her psychosis, and later her stroke, but she insists that her sons’ novels were lies. Maybe they were, maybe they were not, the author does not provide any concrete information that contradicts her sons' statements. Margaret Robison made a bold attempt to help readers understand what it is like to be mentally ill. We see how frightening and difficult it can be to the individual sufferer, as well as to those around her. There is little doubt how terrible it must feel to see things that are not there, etc. Unfortunately, the novel did not have the author’s desired effect, which was to redeem herself in the face of her sons conflicting views. In fact, she looked very self absorbed. Had this been a work of fiction, regardless of her haphazard writing, it may have worked. Regrettably, it was not.
    • 4/5
      I enjoyed this memoir quite a bit, though at times I felt my attention was not held as much as other times. I enjoyed the writing style and the honesty, though I prefer Augusten Burrough's style and books slightly better. I felt at times, though extremely honest, the author was very self-absorbed. I guess there is little chance of avoiding self-absorption though when writing a memoir about yourself. Overall I was enthralled on her life and interested to the very end.
    • 1/5
      I was really excited when I learned that I was to receive this book for early review. I am a huge fan of Augusten Burroughs multiple works, and was eager to see another side of the story. Unfortunately, Margaret Robison comes off as competitive, petty, and self pitying. From the first page (a letter to readers, and a point to write that Margaret Robison started her memoir FIRST) to multiple negative mentions of her son's life, plus his supposed lying, it's fairly obvious she is still nursing a wound from her sons depiction of her, while not taking any of the blame. This memoir is unbelievable, poorly written, and, at times, quite maddening. It's hard to believe a woman who is in her later years, is still delusional enough to only play the role of victim in her life's story. I feel that this work could have been a wonderful insight into her life, why she did the things she did, and an admittance to her mistakes, but instead she comes off as childish throughout every page. It is obvious fairly early on that she is a horrible, self absorbed mother, too caught up in her own "problems" that she can't see how horribly her children need her to save them from their environment. Any person who makes excuses and not amends for her mistakes, especially as a parent, doesn't deserve attention, never mind fame. Even if she hadn't been a famous mother, even if she has just been another unknown author telling her story, this would have been a horrible memoir. I don't know if it's just because the writing is uncorrected (I have never read an early review copy before) but the style is boring, short, and surprisingly unpoetic. It seems like it was written in the style of someone talking. And while she often admits that she lost a lot of memory in her stroke, and that she has a horrible memory in general, she often remembers things while in a state of "psychosis". I tend to let unlikable characters slide if the writing is enjoyable. Unlikeable characters is a part of life. But even for a memoir the character is self absorbed. She has very few, if any, redeeming qualities. And to top it all off, as I said, the writing is atrocious. I really wanted my first early review to be shining and positive, but I just can't do it. I probably wouldn't have even finished this book if it wasn't for Early Review. This book should never have been published. And I honestly doubt it would have been if it weren't for her sons fame. It sickens me that she is trying to defame his character while riding his coattails. Margaret Robison comes off as a horrible person, a horrible mother, and above all, a horrible writer.