New Life, No Instructions: A Memoir [Kindle Edition] Author: Gail Caldwell | Language: English | ISBN:
B00FO5Z9SO | Format: PDF, EPUB
New Life, No Instructions: A Memoir
Download New Life, No Instructions: A Memoir [Kindle Edition] from 4shared, mediafire, hotfile, and mirror link The Pulitzer Prize winner and New York Times bestselling author of Let’s Take the Long Way Home now gives us a stunning, exquisitely written memoir about a dramatic turning point in her life, which unexpectedly opened up a world of understanding, possibility, and connection. New Life, No Instructions is about the surprising way life can begin again, at any age.
“What do you do when the story changes in midlife? When a tale you have told yourself turns out to be a little untrue, just enough to throw the world off-kilter? It’s like leaving the train at the wrong stop: You are still you, but in a new place, there by accident or grace, and you will need your wits about you to proceed.
“Any change that matters, or takes, begins as immeasurably small. Then it accumulates, moss on stone, and after a few thousand years of not interfering, you have a glen, or a waterfall, or a field of hope where sorrow used to be.
“I suppose all of us consider our loved ones extraordinary; that is one of the elixirs of attachment. But over the months of pain and disrepair of that winter, I felt something that made the grimness tolerable: I felt blessed by the tribe I was part of. Here I was, supposedly solo, and the real truth was that I had a force field of connection surrounding me.
“Most of all I told this story because I wanted to say something about hope and the absence of it, and how we keep going anyway. About second chances, and how they’re sometimes buried amid the dross, even when you’re poised for the downhill grade. The narrative can always turn out to be a different story from what you expected.”
Praise for New Life, No Instructions
“Brimming with insights and wisdom . . . As far as I’m concerned, Caldwell can write about whatever she pleases. . . . Unabashed dispatches from lifelong single women are a fairly recent phenomenon. Caldwell has so much more to teach us.”—Kate Bolick, The New York Times Book Review
“Gail Caldwell offers the kind of wisdom and grace you’d wish a friend, sister, or mother might deliver. . . . Fans and new readers alike will find comfort in Caldwell’s voice.”—The Boston Globe
“Quiet but powerful . . . an absorbing meditation on grief and rebirth in midlife.”—More
“Eloquent and uplifting . . . [a story] to inspire you.”—Good Housekeeping
“Graceful and reflective.”—USA Today
“[Caldwell] confronts, with pluck and fortitude, the hurdles that life throws her way.”—Publishers Weekly
“An uplifting journey . . . This book celebrates finding support where you least expect it.”—Woman’s Day
“[A] beautifully written memoir.”—Parade
“[A] thoughtful, wide-eyed view of the world . . . [Caldwell] ably explores the shifts of our hearts.”—Kirkus Reviews
“Getting old, as they say, is not for sissies, and no one would call Pulitzer Prize–winner Caldwell a wimp. . . . There may not have been a road map for the life-changing trip [she] was about to take, but . . . Caldwell realized she had the power to endure.”—Booklist
From the Hardcover edition. Download latest books on mediafire and other links compilation New Life, No Instructions: A Memoir [Kindle Edition]
- File Size: 1114 KB
- Print Length: 177 pages
- Page Numbers Source ISBN: 1400069548
- Publisher: Random House (April 1, 2014)
- Sold by: Random House LLC
- Language: English
- ASIN: B00FO5Z9SO
- Text-to-Speech: Enabled
X-Ray:
- Lending: Not Enabled
- Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #24,826 Paid in Kindle Store (See Top 100 Paid in Kindle Store)
- #37 in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Crafts, Hobbies & Home > Animal Care & Pets > Dogs
- #66 in Books > Crafts, Hobbies & Home > Pets & Animal Care > Dogs
Gail Caldwell is one tough woman. Having survived polio as a baby in Texas (she didn't walk until she was two and a half.) she rallied and had a sports-free childhood at a time when girls weren't expected to be athletic anyway. She went on to raise serious hell in the sixties and settled down later to an impressive career in journalism in Boston.
Along the way she put aside the drinking that was jeopardizing her life. She learned to row on Massachusetts' Charles River. And through it all, she had a series of cats and dogs that she loved probably more than the men she took up with and parted from. Having reconciled to the idea she'd never be a wife or mother, she suffered a series of losses over six years in her fifties--her closest woman friend to cancer (the topic of a previous memoir I haven't read), then her parents' deaths one after another, and finally, her beloved Samoyed sled dog, Clementine. It nearly did her in.
It makes sense that aging will be difficult for the generation that never trusted anyone over 30, and Caldwell is part of that generation. At her lowest point, she takes a leap by adopting a new Samoyed, and shortly afterwards, she confronts pain in her polio-damaged leg that makes it difficult to keep up with her growing pup. A fortunate visit to a doctor who figures out that one of her hips is in need of replacement turns the tide against all this loss.
As a storyteller, Caldwell is more distanced than her fellow Texan memoirist Mary Karr. She tells of very intense struggles at safe remove. And yet I admired the way she slogs along, slaying one dragon at a time.
Gail Caldwell's beautifully written memoir "New Life, No Instructions" is informative, wise and uplifting.
She calls the polio she contracted when she was a couple of months old her "base line." It's the "wall" she pushes against and says everybody has one.
Although she doesn't believe in miracles she says, "I do think you need to be listening when the thunder cracks, because that way you get to be there for the light show that follows."
Over a ten year period she lost her best friend, father, mother, and Clementine, her beloved Samoyed dog. Also the polio she contracted as a baby had begun to reduce her walk to a painful limp and it was getting worse.
Everything changed when a new doctor said she needed a hip replacement and that her leg could be lengthened. Her recovery began when she, for the first time, no longer saw her body in decline and realized she could live pain free.
After surgery and during her brutal rehabilitation Gail was stunned by the outpouring of support and love from her friends and community. They even helped take care of Tula, Gail's new Samoyed puppy. During her recovery Tula sometimes poked her head inside the shower curtain to lick her wounded leg. Also, after a decade of living in Cambridge, Massachusetts, Gail said she was on a first-name basis with half the people on her city block. She believed her neighbors reached out because she lived alone and because the solitude made her stretch her heart.
Gail began walking without crutches after three months and regained her confidence after six. She marveled how even in pain and in training she could walk faster and better than she had in years.
She said she does not resent her regular doctors failure to find the source of her pain for a decade.
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