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The Middle Place |  | Author: Kelly Corrigan
Publisher: Voice
Category: Book
List Price: $14.95
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Seller: backpack_books
Rating:  204 reviews
Sales Rank: 183066
Format: Bargain Price
Media: Paperback
Edition: Reprint
Pages: 288
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.4
Dimensions (in): 7.8 x 5.2 x 0.8
Dewey Decimal Number: 362.196994490092
ASIN: B002DYJKFM
Publication Date: January 1, 2009
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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Product Description
"An amazing story told with steep honesty. The Middle Place is memoir at its highest form."
--Darin Strauss, author of More Than It Hurts You and The Real McCoy "If you're in a book club or just love to read, make sure this book ends up in your lap, where it will remain until you finish. Plan to laugh, cry, and be consumed by Kelly Corrigan."
--Winston-Salem Journal "Bravely reveals the frightened daughter inside the grown-up wife and mother."
--Elle "Come for the writing, stay for the drama. Or vice-versa. Either way, you won't regret it."
--San Francisco Chronicle
For Kelly Corrigan, family is everything. At thirty-six, she had a marriage that worked, two funny, active kids, and a weekly newspaper column. But even as a thriving adult, Kelly still saw herself as the daughter of garrulous Irish-American charmer George Corrigan. She was living deep within what she calls the Middle Place--"that sliver of time when parenthood and childhood overlap"--comfortably wedged between her adult duties and her parents' care. But Kelly is abruptly shoved into coming-of-age when she finds a lump in her breast--and gets the diagnosis no one wants to hear. When George, too, learns that he has late-stage cancer, it is Kelly's turn to take care of the man who had always taken care of her--and to show us a woman who finally takes the leap and grows up.
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| Customer Reviews:
Showing reviews 1-5 of 204
 The Top Place for Outstanding Memoirs February 17, 2008
Michele Cozzens (Cloud 8)
51 out of 58 found this review helpful
This memoir is filled with love, humility, honesty, compassion and a great sense of humor. Well-written and highly readable, the structure pulls you from cover to cover so quickly, it's readable in one sitting. My one sitting happened to be on a long plane ride, however, the time I spent getting to know Kelly Corrigan and her father, "Greenie," along with the rest of Kelly's family, made the plane not only bearable, but also enjoyable. She moved me from tears to laughter to a place of profound contentment. In the Prologue Kelly tells her readers that the one thing we need to know about her is that she's "George Corrigan's daughter." Ultimately, the one thing I believe this survival story is about is how love of family will see you through anything. Even cancer.
The Middle Place, according to Kelly, is the place between childhood and adulthood. This takes place for her between August, 2004 and August, 2005, which is the essential duration of the story. By alternating chapters between present and past, this young mother moves the reader from the middle place, a place where she learns she has breast cancer, to her past with stories of her life as her parents' child and her brothers' sister. Because Kelly, aka "Lovey," shares the cancer experience with her high-spirited and utterly lovable father, it makes the middle place that much more complicated and rich. She holds back little and seems keenly aware of her reader. Writing outside herself, she keeps readers in the loop in spite of very personal revelations. She is indeed her father's daughter.
A big fan of memoirs, this is one of the best I've read in a long time and I give it my highest recommendation.
Michele Cozzens is the author of It's Not Your Mother's Bridge Club
ENRICHING, ENCOURAGING AND LIFE AFFIRMING February 17, 2008
Gail Cooke (TX, USA)
12 out of 14 found this review helpful
Aptly titled, The Middle Place refers to the times in our lives when we're both child of our parents and a mother or father ourselves. We can be torn by these allegiances or as Kelly Corrigan did discover untapped resources within us and a deeper understanding of life.
The author begins her memoir with "The thing you need to know about me is that I am George Corrigan's daughter, his only daughter." For her that was akin to being royalty - totally loved, always encouraged, protected, safe, and happy. George, often called Greenie, was a larger than life man, a robust Irish Catholic ad salesman and lacrosse coach who never knew a stranger, enjoyed life to the fullest, and doted on his only daughter.
How could any boyfriend or husband begin to give Kelly what she received from her father? That's a difficult, almost impossible act to follow. She recounts a time after she and Edward have begun living together when she had excitedly told him that she's just gotten a new job with a great salary. Of course, she expected some sort of mini celebration that evening. Instead, Edward came through the door and began checking the day's mail. When she became exasperated at his lack of enthusiasm for what has just happened to her, he replied, "I'm not Greenie, Kelly. No one is." That was the truth and in a way the beginning of her emergence into adulthood.
The time came when Kelly was diagnosed with breast cancer and her beloved father who lived some 3,000 miles away was also cancer stricken. The man who had always been her mainstay now needed support himself. She is a married woman with two young children and as she says absolutely no time for "lumps."
That this story can be told with humor, honesty and grace is a tribute not only to Kelly Corrigan the person but to Kelly Corrigan the writer. She is superb! Her descriptions and similes are unique, true, and sing as her pen reveals what her eyes have seen and her heart has felt.
An accomplished voice performer, Tavia Gilbert is equally at home with commercials, jingles, songs, business presentations, and even assuming a fine British accent. Her narration of The Middle Place appropriately captures Kelly's tragedies and triumphs. Excellent listening!
- Gail Cooke
WOW!!! January 13, 2008
Susan H. Garlinghouse (Topeka Kansas)
28 out of 36 found this review helpful
There is that special and floating time when child transitions to adult and Kelly Corrigan aptly takes us there. Corrigan captures the very essence of her family of origin and describes them so well that one begins to believe that just maybe we lived next door. The Middle Place is an uplifting story about life, about the tools needed for survival, an ordinary yet extraordinary true tale. The Middle Place defines the centers of our beings, what makes us tick, what helps us cope and hope, what is truly most important, indeed what makes us human - the bonds of family.
Poignant; couldn't put it down January 9, 2008
BookGirl (Boston, MA)
49 out of 65 found this review helpful
I read this book last month as an advanced reading copy and LOVED it. I really related to the "middle place" she refers to, being in between raising my young children and still being a daughter to my own parents. I shed more than a few tears reading this book, but I laughed out loud quite a bit too. I didn't want it to end. I have very high standards when it comes to books (I'm an Ivy League grad and I read a lot) so I don't rate books as 5 stars casually. I immediately emailed 10 friends to go read it. This book reminds me a little of "Eat, Pray, Love" -- totally different subjects, but the candid, well-written, razor-wit memoir style is similar. Just like I felt about Elizabeth Gilbert, I'd like to meet Kelly Corrigan one day. She has that down-to-earth, self-deprecating style that bonds a reader.
A fun, easy yet thought provoking story January 10, 2008
M. H. McQuiston (San Francisco, CA)
9 out of 11 found this review helpful
I loved this book. It's a fun, easy read yet thought provoking. I find myself thinking about Kelly, her dad and all the various stories on a regular basis. I've actually gone back and re-read chapters which is a first for me.
Showing reviews 1-5 of 204
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