The Poison Tree
A Memoir
by Henry Schvey
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Pub Date Sep 06 2016 | Archive Date Sep 30 2016
Amphorae Publishing Group | Walrus Publishing
Description
Growing up in his father’s looming shadow, Henry I. Schvey wondered if he was doomed to repeat the past, doomed to make the same mistakes his father made. Would he succumb to the drive for domination and transform his own world into one colored by fear, domestic violence, infidelity, and spousal abuse? Schvey grew up in New York as his father rose to the pinnacle of success in the Reagan era of dog-eat-dog global finance, eventually becoming Vice-President and Chairman of the Bond Funds Division at Merrill Lynch. But his father’s success was paid for with the currency of intimidation and he wore it with the braggadocio of a man with an outsized ego who didn’t care who he stepped on to get to the top—including his son.
The Poison Tree is a study of Schvey’s relationship to his father, an illumination of the secret life of a man who was powerful, highly respected, and greatly feared, and a journey—both sad and tragicomic—that ultimately leads to forgiveness.
A Note From the Publisher
Elementary School and the Horace Mann School for Boys. After graduating from the University of Wisconsin, Madison, he received an MA in Western European Studies and a PhD in Comparative Literature at Indiana University. He worked in the Netherlands for fourteen years, during which time he taught at Leiden University and founded the Leiden English Speaking Theatre (LEST). He, his wife, and three children returned to the U.S. in 1987, where he became chair of the Performing Arts Department at Washington University in St. Louis. He stepped down as chair in 2007, but continues to teach, direct, and write as Professor of Drama and Comparative Literature.
Advance Praise
"The Poison Tree is a tantalizing coming of age memoir that painstakingly recalls the joys and pains of a boy's passage into celebrated manhood."
- A.E.Hotchner
This “Remembrance of Things Past” is neither “sweet” nor “silent,” and I cite that sonnet because Henry Schvey’s mother quotes Shakespeare frequently and his father is a character straight out of one of the tragicomedies—tempestuous, driven, hateful and hate-filled yet kind. Their son’s memoir is closely watched and keenly heard: a riveting account of childhood and young manhood from the wounded adult who survives.
- Nicholas Delbanco is the author, most recently,of the novel The Years
"With chilling accuracy, Henry Schvey reveals the cruelty that simmered beneath the seemingly placid surface of 1950s America. If you are a boomer who looks back on your childhood with nostalgia, if you saw Mad Men on TV and wished you could have lived in an era when the men looked and acted like Don Draper or Roger Sterling,The Poison Tree will both feed and cure your longing. With artistry and skill, wisdom and compassion, Schvey exposes not only his complicated relationship to his highly successful but sadistic father, but also the ways in which literature, art, and love can save a young man's soul."
- Eileen Pollack, Professor, MFA Program in Creative Writing, University of Michigan
"Wickedly funny and heartbreaking in turn, this incisive and ironic sweep of his family's foibles and the America of the 60's 70's and 80's makes for compulsive reading. This is writing from a master of the genre which deserves a wide readership. Hugely enjoyable and compelling."
- Jane Lapotaire, Royal Shakespeare Company Hon Associate Artist, Tony Award, Helen Hayes and Olivier Award winner
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Available Editions
| EDITION | Other Format |
| ISBN | 9781940442167 |
| PRICE | $15.95 (USD) |
Average rating from 7 members
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