#DARKNESS TO LIGHT A MEMOIR SERIES#

As a dedicated nonfiction writer, I sometimes meet poets’ memoirs with a caginess that is utterly disgraced by a book like this, whose structure is nearly as immaculate as its sentences. Of his abandoned Catholicism, Hewitt confesses that “the shape of myself was molded by it, the routines of my body colored by its sounds and movements, the imagery of my mind rinsed with it,” and to our benefit even his depictions of cruising have a holy aura. Woven into this portrait of depression’s maelstrom is the author’s own queer coming-of-age. His first memoir offers a rapturous account of his years with a boyfriend who suffered from suicidal depression. The mind in question in ALL DOWN DARKNESS WIDE: A Memoir (229 pp., Penguin Press, $26) is that of Hewitt, an Irish writer in his early 30s who is already a Laurel Prize-winning poet and critic, and a teaching fellow in literature at Trinity College Dublin.

Together they form a harmonious collage of worldview and character, a wunderkammer of experiences in a life fully lived. This narrative both coheres and bogs down the book’s overall movement, though her insights remain sound and her sentences beautiful and lucid. Threaded throughout her travels is the story of how, “adrift on a sea of shifting hormones,” she fell sway to an emotional affair after 17 years with her sculptor husband. Not all of the essays live up to the standard of that opener, but they maintain this compelling persona. She recalls an embrace they shared at the end of their meeting: “I had recognized her perfume - Amazone - because it had come from my own bottle.” Our narrator has made a stunning entrance, proved herself intrepid and empathetic, gifted with the dispassionate gaze of a born observer. For the next 20 years, she returns to the hotel with the book, doomed never to find Masha. Before departing, DeSanctis agrees to bring Masha an illustrated edition of Pushkin’s fairy tales on her next trip. DeSanctis reacts with pity rather than anger and soon the interloper is toweling the guest’s forehead and tucking her in. Upon returning to her room with a fever, she encounters a hotel employee named Masha - part concierge, part Kremlin informant - trying on her clothes. Marcia DeSanctis, an award-winning travel writer and longtime news producer, opens hers, A HARD PLACE TO LEAVE: Stories From a Restless Life (313 pp., Travelers’ Tales, $27.95), with an episode in which a younger version of herself is on assignment in Cold War Moscow. In this profoundly honest book, Lamar invites you to walk with him through the good times and bad, while looking ahead to a brighter future.The best essay collections unfold the tensions inherent in ethics, intimate relationships and art, and in the process offer a portrait of the writer’s mind. He shares his personal account of the lifelong passion that started as one shining light in a childhood marked by loss and led to his international fame as one of the most extraordinary athletes of all time. Lamar brings basketball fans directly into the action of a game during the Lakers championship years.

From the pain of his unraveled marriage to Khloe Kardashian to the harmful vices he used to cope-and the near-death experience that made him rethink everything about his life-this is Lamar as you have never before seen him. His exclusive and revealing memoir recounts the highs and lows of fame and his struggle with his demons along the way to self-discovery and redemption. In Darkness to Light, Lamar gives readers an intimate look into his life like never before. But until now, his most candid moments have remained behind closed doors.

#DARKNESS TO LIGHT A MEMOIR SERIES#

But who is Lamar, really? Fans have long praised his accessibility and genuine everyman quality-he is a blinding talent who has suffered a series of heartaches, setback, and loss. The world knows Lamar Odom as a two-time NBA world champion who rocketed to uncharted heights of fame thanks to being a member of both the storied Los Angeles Lakers and the ubiquitous Kardashian empire. Desperation and elation-sometimes in the same hour.

Darkness to light a memoir