2 out of 4 stars
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There and Back There Again, a memoir (of sorts) written by Andrew (Andy) Alsup, is an aggressively emotional collection of short essays that detail the difficult experiences and a handful of happy-cum-funny experiences from Andy’s daily life. The book recounts Andy’s constant struggle with auditory hallucinations, featuring voices that try to manipulate and lure him into doing things he doesn’t want to do. By introducing us to these voices—christened “Chipmunk” due to their squeaky nature—Andy tells us how his fear or lack thereof for them keeps him constantly on the edge. Andy makes it known that his privacy is being destroyed every second through “psychic intrusion.” This leads him to draft a constitutional amendment for privacy, for which he is currently requesting public support.
I can honestly say that there are some really enjoyable essays in this book that made quite an impact on me. One such notable section talked about Edgar Allan Poe’s distinctive style of writing. These essays had me hooked all the way through to the end when it presented the thought process that led to Poe’s creation of the famous poem “Raven.” Actually, Andy keeps us engaged and thoroughly interested when he talks so lovingly about Rudi, Amber, Sasha, and Dummy—his pets. I love the way Andy has written these small essays. He also manages to make us empathize with him when he talks about how he felt harassed by people who make personal “psychic” attacks at him for some of his character traits and how he had to face a hard time from his former colleagues when he quit work for health reasons.
From the way he writes, you can definitely make out that Andy is highly intellectual. He does no lackluster job in showing just how affected he is by the several people and events in his life that got him to be on the guard constantly. He also does extremely well in describing how people never talked to him when they should have and how it’s too late now to sort things out with just talk. I often felt concerned for him, reading of the dangers that he felt surrounded him and wondered what would happen next.
However, I have to say that “characterization” was totally lacking in this book. It was really difficult to identify when Andy was referring to real-life people and when he was referring to those imaginary voices. Also, whom did these voices belong to? Maybe some of these belong to people that he knew from before? Or, are they all unidentifiable? From the author’s blurb, I gather that “the voices belong to real people behaving badly.” But as you read the book, you get confused beyond measure.
I understand that this book is just a compilation of Andy’s thoughts that he wanted to share with the world—and these include some of his most personal opinions and feelings. I really appreciate that. Nevertheless, what the author seems to have missed is that a book needs some coherent thought binding it all together. Most essays from the start of the book just begin and end with Andy expressing his frustration over people and voices—both real and imaginary—that he says are interfering with his life. He could have probably inserted a small introductory paragraph explaining what or whom he was angry with before he started each of these essays.
As an author writing about his life, Andy makes sure that his readers never forget how terrible his life was most of the time. He definitely does succeed in drawing empathy from his readers, but with his incessant swearing, he does get us irritated a lot as well. He also manages to hinder his storytelling with phrases, descriptions, and events being repeated so often that I felt as though I could easily guess what would be the next lines to follow on that page.
While the book shows that a lot of events have contributed to Andy’s distress in life, I cannot ignore the lack of sufficient interesting content in it that would make it appealing to someone who doesn’t know him personally. The unnecessary repetition, the lack of necessary description, and the lack of an understandable sequence of events also affected the overall reading experience. However, the book had minimal grammar and punctuation mistakes, which I appreciate.
Keeping all this in mind, I give this book 2 out of 4 stars. As this is no book for leisure reading, I would recommend it to those who enjoy essay compilations that don’t necessarily have a structure and pertain to random thoughts. However, the book might not be the best choice for someone who likes positive, organized content in their reading material.
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There and Back There Again
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