Member Reviews
Bookseller 264981
This memoir about a woman reckoning with near death experience in the context of family suicide attempts is well written and intriguing.
Teddy R, Reviewer
Stuck between her mother's alcoholism and her father's depression, Amy's childhood was not easy. In 1957, Amy Turner's father tried to kill himself by jumping off of the ledge attached to his hotel room window. He was on a business trip and ended up having to be talked down by a priest who just happened to be passing by.
Starting the memoir from this place—the first moment that her life changed forever—Amy goes on to explain how her father's subsequent hospital stay affected her entire family. From the time that she was four years old on, Amy's family had to sidestep her father's fragile moods and continually worry about his mental health. Although Amy makes it clear that she loved her father, the adapted ways that she learned to deal with him throughout her childhood took a toll on her.
Many years later, Amy's life is forever changed in another split second when she is hit by a car. Although she is soon deemed to have only sustained a concussion, Amy spends many terrifying hours after the accident and during the Life Flight to the hospital, wondering if she is going to die. Events like this can understandably change a person, and it is from this that Amy began to take a good, hard look at her life and her childhood.
'On the Ledge,' is a memoir that is well worth your time and worth adding to your TBR list! Turner's look at her inner child and all of the events that lead her to the place in her life that she is now, was refreshing and thought-provoking.
I couldn't put this book down throughout the entire time that I was reading, and finished it in one day. I deeply admire Turner's resilience and appreciate her sharing her story with readers everywhere.
