The Tender Land: A Family Love Story (2000)

This sensitive, restrained memoir searches for answers to the most painful of questions: Why would a bright, athletic, seemingly well-adjusted boy like Kathleen Finneran's 15-year-old brother want to take his own life? Sean Finneran's 1971 suicide is the pivotal crisis in The Tender Land, but not the only one. References to a family strain of depressive mental illness sound a warning note; Finneran's maternal grandfather probably killed himself, and her mother is subject to severe bouts of depression that may also have afflicted Sean, whose suicide note reveals a self-hatred that the love of his parents and siblings could not assuage. The author frankly relates her own problems with weight, an inexplicable but irresistible urge to shoplift,... full description and uncertain sexual orientation. But Finneran's precise prose, rich in evocative physical details, convincingly limns an ordinary, generally happy Midwestern family: five children spread over 16 years; a devout, nature- and animal-loving mother; a father who communicated best without words, rooted in "his faith in materials men make of the earth." There are no villains and no answers in this heartbreaking book, which respects the essential mystery of a shattering tragedy and closes with an affirmative message to Sean: "I want to call out your name and tell you, across the tender land, that we have gone on living." --Wendy Smith (less description)

Author: Kathleen Finneran

Categories: Arts & Literature, Memoirs, Death & Grief, Psychology & Counseling, Family Relationships, Biographies & Memoirs, Health, Mind & Body, Parenting & Families