#family-trauma

#family-trauma

In 1968, when Robert Crumb published Head Comix, the poet Allen Ginsberg called him a "supreme funny underground comic strip incarnation of the post-historic flower age". Crumb sang the praises of LSD. If you did not take drugs, Crumb's entropic scenes could make you feel as if you did. Countless businesses pirated his images all the way to the bank. Andy Warhol was probably jealous, but he died before Crumb started making money.

The award-winning Australian writer's third adult novel begins with a lone woman, Rowan, washed up on a remote island between Tasmania and Antarctica. Shearwater is a research outpost, home to the global seed vault created as a bulwark against climate catastrophe and to colonies of seals, penguins and birds. For eight years, Dominic Salt and his children have lived there, but dangerously rising sea levels mean that they, and the vault, will shortly be evacuated.

My parents usually weren't in the same house at the same time, though they occasionally made an exception for holidays. We might have dinner, followed by arguments or passive aggressive comments about who didn't help whom prepare and clean up. I longed for the traditions that others had with their families: making hot chocolate, stringing popcorn-such random, small things, but so meaningful when done together as a family.

Writer John T. Edge has spent much of his career telling stories about a changing American South filtered through the lens of food and culture. He's published cookbooks and food histories, and he's been a contributor to the New York Times, the now-shuttered magazine, Gourmet, the Food Network, and NPR's Weekend All Things Considered. He also hosts the TV program True South.

Hannah Frances's exhilarating sixth album is an unruly ecosystem: nature sprawls, resurfaced family trauma unearths unrevealed roots, an unexpected rupture creates fertile ground for new understandings to blossom. The deep steadiness of the Vermont songwriter's previous album, last year's Keeper of the Shepherd, is replaced by ramshackle clusters of kindling-snap drums, nervy woodwind, jabbing brass, all swarming together like a cloud of bees. Her awkwardly beautiful chord changes evoke ornate wood carvings; her tempos are always wayward.

I have a very strict mother. As a child, I was never allowed to sleep over at friends' houses or travel on the bus to and from school alone. I was always accompanied and had it drilled into me that there is safety in numbers because girls are not safe; women are not safe, alone. Never leave the pack, never wander off.

When 'Black Rabbit' begins, Jake and Vince haven't seen each other in years. (There are a lot of time-jump flashbacks so we can see where and how things went wrong.) The bros used to be in a somewhat popular band together (watching Law do Kurt Cobain-esque grunge is a particular treat), but after that ended they poured their hearts and money into a restaurant/VIP lounge called Black Rabbit based in Brooklyn, right by the iconic bridge.

My heart just, like, dropped, and I felt sick. I entered right after the police did. I think it was very chaotic. Looks like you guys are on a team. Cool. The doors opened, and kids started coming out. A lot of the first ones were injured. A lot of them were cut with glass. I was looking for my girls. That was just my priority. I just wanted to find them and get them safe.

I was in Carton House when I got the call that dad had been knocked off his bike and taken by ambulance to hospital in Limerick where his condition was critical. It was Tuesday February 7, 2023. The previous Saturday I'd started the first game of that season's Six Nations and was due to start the following Saturday against France. In my world, everything was going well.

Be patient. Don't expect to just find her a therapist. Be prepared to find a second one and a third one if the first doesn't work out.

Toph Eggers lost both parents to cancer at age eight, leading to a life shaped by trauma and family dynamics, ultimately informing his work as a therapist.