Book Synopsis:
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.
Tilting is available now in ebook and paperback now, the ebook is currently only £2.21, you can buy a copy of both Here.
My Review:
Tilting is a beautiful, emotional but uplifting memoir that I really enjoyed reading. The book is told from two timelines, one following Nicole’s dad from the time of his illness and the other looking back at some of the happy memories the family have shared over the years.
Firstly I loved Nicole’s lively, fun family. They reminded me so much of my family on holiday where maybe everything isn’t always perfect but we all muddle through and enjoy it anyway. You can well imagine some of the events becoming those stories that continue to be told through the ages. Nicole’s relationship with her father and the obvious bond they share is beautiful to read about, though maybe quite poignant considering what comes next.
The book is really well written and quite easy to read as it is written in a conversational tone so that the reader feels like the author is talking directly to them. The fly on the wall descriptions make the book seem very intimate so that the reader feels very involved in the book and means that you care much more about what is going to happen. I spent a considerable time during the book biting my lip hoping that the situation wouldn’t cause Nicole’s lovely family to separate.
I really related to this book as not only did some of the family holidays remind me of ones I’d taken as a kid but also because we only found out about my grandfather’s girlfriend when he was ill too. Therefore I can well imagine the horror of that discovery and the emotions that follows, which the author does a great job of describing. She never over dramatises what happens but instead sticks to what obviously did occur which makes the scenes maintain their authenticity. I though this was incredibly well done by the author and this is part of what made this book such a great read for me.
This is the first book by this author that I have read and I look forward to reading more from her in the future. If you like authentic, original memoirs that are beautifully written you’ll love this book.
Huge thanks to Rachel from Rachel’s Random Resources for my copy of this book and for inviting me onto the blog tour.
About The Author:
Nicole Harkin, an award winning writer and natural-light photographer based in Washington, DC, spent years working on government oversight. Tilting, A Memoir is her first book. She grew up in Montana and Georgia with parents who were steeped in the airline industry. She was recently featured on the Cool Tools podcast talking about her favorite uncommonly good tools and her writing. After college at Purdue University where she studied Political Science, German, and Geology, she worked in government oversight. Subsequently, she attended law school at Pace University. As a Fulbright Scholar during law school, Nicole lived in Berlin, Germany where she studied German environmentalism. She spent an additional year in Berlin as a Bosch Fellow researching German’s Freedom of Information Act. Her writing can be found in Thought Collection, you are here: The Journal of Creative Geography, and other local DC blogs. Her current work in progress, Death in Berlin, is a murder mystery set in Berlin.
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