Raising Abel

Raising Abel

KIRKUS REVIEWS

A woman of remarkable resourcefulness single-handedly raises a troubled child all the way to manhood in this intimate and inspiring blog-to-book memoir.
At 38, Carolyn Nash had a good job, no apparent struggles and few conscious regretsâ€”save, perhaps, her weight and her childlessness. She remedies the latter by fostering and then adopting 3-year-old Abel, a victim of
unspeakable parental abuse, most of it sexual. The consequences are predictable and agonizing. Abel is charmingly innocent yet uncontrollably violent, and as he grows, so do his PTSD symptoms. He refuses to bathe,
he fails in school. Thrown toys become thrown punches, then smashed windshields. Psychiatrists are consulted, police called. Special education, home-schooling, hospitalizations, medsâ€”all resources are tried and exhausted. Yet Nash remains indefatigable, wrestling with her son (literally) and with her inner demons and repressed memories, haltingly revealed in sessions with her therapist. Through the lens of Abelâ€™s trauma, Nash peers into her own nightmaresâ€”she too feels deformed and unlovableâ€”and learns their sick source. The book is structured almost entirely in short, dramatic episodes, a technique Nash uses skillfully... late in the story, when the troubled teen turns violently on Nash herself ... we get a
penetrating glimpse into Abelâ€™s beating heart, where his triggers, his alienation and his lifelong struggle come into searing focus. Here Nash gives
us Abel in full, and we see with our own eyes how the measure of this young man is also the measure of the woman who raised himâ€”with pure,
dogged, unrelenting, overwhelming, at times selfish, often desperate, boundless, evergreen love. This was her treatment and her cure. We know it
by its common termâ€”mothering.

A sobering but uplifting tale of love that never gives up; dramatically told, ultimately rewarding.

Nash, Carolyn
RAISING ABEL
CreateSpace (332 pp.)
$15.99 Paperback
$3.99 e-book
November 5, 2011
ISBN: 978-1466499263
Country USA
Binding Kindle Edition
ReleaseDate 2011-11-04
Format Kindle eBook

Country	USA
Binding	Kindle Edition
ReleaseDate	2011-11-04
Format	Kindle eBook

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