Tilting

A Memoir

By: Nicole Harkin

Narrated by: Maureen Boutilier

We only learned about our father's girlfriend after he became deathly ill and lay in a coma 120 miles from our home.

Overhearing the nurse tell Linda - since I was nine I had called my mom by her first name - about the girlfriend who came in almost every day to visit him when we weren't there confirmed that the last moment of normal had passed us by without our realizing it. Up to then, our family had unhappily coexisted with Dad flying jumbo jets to Asia while we lived in Montana. We finally came together to see Dad through his illness, but he was once again absent from a major family event - unable to join us from his comatose state. This is the moment when our normal existence tilted.

Dad recovered, but the marriage ailed, as did Linda, with cancer. Our family began to move down an entirely different path with silver linings we wouldn't see for many years.

In this candid and compassionate memoir, Nicole Harkin describes with an impressionist's fine eye the evolution of a family that is quirky, independent, uniquely supportive, peculiarly loving, and, most of all, marvelously human.

©2017 Black Rose Writing (P)2017 Beacon Audiobooks

Touching, insightful memoir.

Well-written and well read memoir about a dysfunctional but lovable family told with wit, humor, and insight. The author tells a tale of resiliency at its best in a very engaging way. I enjoyed all six hours I spent getting to know Nicole and her family. I highly recommend this book/recording.

Genius

I felt like I was reading a fresh and touching work written by a new voice, read by her best friend.

This book is original and when not crazily funny, deeply and poignantly sad.

I’m not sure how I found this book, but I was charmed and touched.

It’s the kind of book that makes you want to search out the author on Been Verified and write: don’t stop! Don’t stop, honey! You are the real thing.

But you don’t wan’t to scare her.

But please don’t. You are a very real and endearing voice. And RIP Linda.

[e-mail]

PS: Fantastic title!

Not worth your time

I don’t usually write negative reviews, but this book needs people warned about. The narrator is perhaps the worst I’ve experienced. Every voice except hers is either a wicked witch or a snaggle-toothed hillbilly. I had to listen to it at a faster speed to be able to stand it. At one point she used the word interrupt when she obviously meant interpret. And it was very disconcerting to hear her repeatedly pronounce reconcile as ree-concile.

As for the writer, she comes across as a shallow human being, although that might be the fault of her simplistic world view and unsophisticated writing style. For example, she admitted that she got “hysterical” when her husband gently suggested that they wash their clothes separately. Earlier she pried a secret out of her younger sister, promising she wouldn’t tell, and when the sister finally admitted it was she who’d cut the cat’s hair, the writer immediately told. I only finished the book, thinking it would get better. It didn’t.