An Abbreviated Life
- Author: Ariel Leve
- Narrator: Martha Plimpton
- Publisher: HarperCollins USA
- Duration: 6:00:11
Synopsis
A beautiful, startling, and candid memoir about growing up without boundaries, in which Ariel Leve recalls with candor and sensitivity the turbulent time she endured as the only child of an unstable poet for a mother and a beloved but largely absent father, and explores the consequences of a psychologically harrowing childhood as she seeks refuge from the past and recovers what was lost.
Ariel Leve grew up in Manhattan with an eccentric mother she describes as “a poet, an artist, a self-appointed troublemaker and attention seeker.” Leve learned to become her own parent, taking care of herself and her mother’s needs. There would be uncontrolled, impulsive rages followed with denial, disavowed responsibility, and then extreme outpourings of affection. How does a child learn to feel safe in this topsy-turvy world of conditional love?
Leve captures the chaos and lasting impact of a child’s life under siege and explores how the coping mechanisms she developed to survive later incapacitated her as an adult. There were material comforts, but no emotional safety, except for summer visits to her father’s home in South East Asia—an escape that was terminated after he attempted to gain custody. Following the death of a loving caretaker, a succession of replacements raised Leve—relationships which resulted in intense attachment and loss. It was not until decades later, when Leve moved to other side of the world, that she could begin to emancipate herself from the past. In a relationship with a man who has children, caring for them yields clarity of what was missing.
In telling her haunting story, Leve seeks to understand the effects of chronic psychological maltreatment on a child’s developing brain, and to discover how to build a life for herself that she never dreamed possible: An unabbreviated life.
Chapters
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001 An Abbreviated Life
Duration: 54s -
002 Chapter 1
Duration: 01min -
003 Chapter 2
Duration: 02min -
004 Chapter 3
Duration: 01min -
005 Chapter 4
Duration: 06min -
006 Chapter 5
Duration: 02min -
007 Chapter 6
Duration: 06min -
008 Chapter 7
Duration: 04min -
009 Chapter 8
Duration: 07min -
010 Chapter 9
Duration: 02min -
011 Chapter 10
Duration: 09min -
012 Chapter 11
Duration: 01min -
013 Chapter 12
Duration: 14min -
014 Chapter 13
Duration: 18min -
015 Chapter 14
Duration: 17min -
016 Chapter 15
Duration: 12min -
017 Chapter 16
Duration: 04min -
018 Chapter 17
Duration: 06min -
019 Chapter 18
Duration: 03min -
020 Chapter 19
Duration: 09min