The Sky Isn’t Visible From Here by Felicia Sullivan
Felicia Sullivan has had an extremely difficult and chaotic life. Her mother bounced around from man to man, becoming addicted to cocaine and doing all manner of things in order to get her next fix. As an adult, Felicia has not seen or spoken to her mother since the day before her college graduation, when she asked her mother not to attend. Although determined to be different from her mother, Felicia has herself become an alcoholic who is addicted to cocaine as well.
If you’re going to read a hardship memoir, this is the one you should read. Sullivan has quite a gift with words and never gave off a ‘pity me’ vibe but shared her life in a straightforward manner. She provokes emotions in her reader simply by showing us the events of her interactions with her mother instead of trying to tell us how to feel.
The story jumps around a good deal, although the chapter headings (if you are the sort who is good at paying attention to chapter headings, which I am not) do tell you when and where you are. I imagine that Sullivan constructed her memoir as she did to give the reader a sense of the chaos she has lived. I do think that that a more chronological ordering of Felicia’s life might have given a better sense of her growth that could have made her story more satisfying, but I do understand stylistically why she would have chosen to structure her story the way she did.
For a hardship memoir this was remarkably light on the desire for pity, which made it that much more attractive. I really was captivated by Felicia’s story.
Buy this book from:
Powells.
A local independent bookstore via Indiebound.
Amazon.
This memoir sounds interesting. I don’t pay any attention to chapter headings either. I can’t tell you how many times an author has badly distinguished characters from one another and I’ve been confused because I ignored the heading. I’d have to try and pay more attention for this one!
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I really should try to be better, it screws me up in some historical fiction too, I don’t pay attention to dates, then things jump by 5 years or something…
Actually I’m reading The Hotel on the Corner of Bitter & Sweet Now, and you really need those chapter headings to tell you when and where you are! This one sounds interesting too!
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Thanks for a great review! You are so right that hardship memoirs need to avoid the self-pity to be enjoyable.
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I’ll keep this on my radar, although I’m not sure if it would be a good for me.
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I have a copy of this book, too. I’m looking forward to reading it now, especially after your review. Thankfully I’m anal about reading chapter headings when they aren’t numbers (well, actually even then, too). I have no idea why, but it’s going to help me out with this memoir.
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I’m drawn to books like this for some reason, so I’m adding this to my wish list. Great review.
Thank you for such an honest and thoughtful review of my memoir!!! I really appreciate it. I do know that the time shifts were definitely problematic for some, however, I’m not sure if I could have written it any other way. I actually tried a chronological story line and it didn’t work as well than the idea of showing dislocation, memory fragmentation that I felt and wanted to impress upon the reader.
Anyway, thank you so much for supporting Sky!!
Warmly, Felicia
This sounds like a fascinating memoir. I like chapter headings and quotes in books. I find it enhances the reading experience for me. I enjoyed your straightforward and honest review.
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I like that term, “hardship memoir”. I’m not sure if this is one for me, but great review.
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I’ve just come from Amy’s review of After the Moment, and thought I recognised something… It’s the same photo of the girl on the cover!
Nevertheless, the books sounds an fascinating read.
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I’ve had my eye on this one for awhile. I was just looking through my wish list in fact, wondering if it was time to add it to my actual TBR stacks. I like that it doesn’t have a “pity me” vibe as you describe. That’s something I am not too fond of these days in memoirs. Thanks for the great review–and the reminder that I need to read this one.
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Great review! I really want to read this one!
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Oh my gosh, Bart is so right!! AACK!
I used to work with Felicia a little when she was at Harper Collins (she sent me books) I’ve wanted to read her book. Do you follow her on Twitter?
.-= Amy @ My Friend Amy´s last blog ..Faith ‘n’ Fiction Saturday: Speculative Fiction =-.
They are definitely the same picture. Who does those duplicate cover posts, Alea? I didn’t know that Felicia was on Twitter, I’ll have to find her.
I read this book back when it came out, awesome! Felicia is an awesome person too by the way, we’ve chatted a bit via email before.
Follow her @felsull