The Seeing Glass

Several weeks ago I mentioned that I had started to read my friend and colleague Jacquelin Gorman’s 1997 memoir “The Seeing Glass.” Well, a few days ago I finally found some time to get back to the book, and I finished it early this morning. This is a magnificent memoir. Beautifully written, an amazing story, and deeply, deeply moving. Jackie’s writing is fluid, graceful, nuanced, and both brutally and beautifully honest. The twin tales she spins about her own temporary blindness (horrifying) and the short and difficult life of her autistic brother Robin are absolutely riveting.

A couple of moments ago I did something I’ve never done – I posted a review of a book on amazon.com. It was a review of Jackie’s magnificent memoir. In part, I wrote: “If you have ever lost a loved one or felt alone or felt afraid of anything, anything at all, you owe it to yourself to read this memoir, and recognize (perhaps again) that you are not alone. As Mary Karr writes in her introduction to the tenth anniversary edition of her memoir, ‘The Liars' Club,’ ‘the boat I can feel so lonely in actually holds us all.’”

Reading Jackie Gorman’s “The Seeing Glass” will remind you that you are not alone, that you are able to overcome your fears, and that there is so much more to live for than so many of us always remember on a day to day basis.

I cannot recommend it highly enough.

Namaste.