From Scarsdale

A Childhood

By: Dan O'Brien

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Paperback | 31 October 2023

At a Glance

Paperback
220 Pages

Dimensions(cm)
21.5 x 13.9 x 1.27

Paperback

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From Scarsdale is an evocative and lyrical memoir of a haunted childhood in Scarsdale, New York.

With a cancer diagnosis in his early forties, the author is compelled to revisit and resolve the mystery of his family's sadness. The fourth of six children in an Irish-American household distinctly out-of-place in this affluent suburb of New York City, O’Brien grows up in a claustrophobic milieu of secrecy, lies, and mental illness. The turning point in his maturation is an older brother’s attempted suicide - an event he witnesses firsthand.

From Scarsdale traces with sensitivity the complex histories and dynamics that lead to this trauma, as O’Brien investigates the psychologies of his parents, themselves the survivors of painful childhoods in Scarsdale. Then, simultaneously disturbed and catalyzed by his brother’s depression, and his own developing obsessive-compulsive disorder, the adolescent O’Brien discovers literature and the theatre as an escape, though it will take years for an actual liberation to occur. In many ways this memoir is that liberation, as his ambition here has been to tell "the story of who I am and where I’m from, with honesty, insight, and something like forgiveness. To try to leave the old place behind."

With the specificity and aching affection of William Maxwell’s Ancestors, and the impressionistic, mosaic-like structure of Michael Ondaatje’s Running in the Family, this book’s subject is ultimately, like all memoir, the solace and the conundrum of memory. From Scarsdale is a rare book, uniquely told, and a poignant example of the redemptive power of a true story.

Industry Reviews

"By turns sad and bleakly comic . . . a fine, evocative memoir of a suburban 1980s childhood." -James Cook, The Times Literary Supplement

Praise for A Story That Happens

"A master class in surviving through art." ― Margaret Gray, The Los Angeles Times

“Powerful . . . . This is a book for our times. It reminds us that theatre is ‘fractured and failing yet struggling towards the mouth's translation of the heart’s tongue’. Like [O’Brien], we buzz with the desire for the ‘chance for more life, and for that most valued of theatrical currencies - change’.” ― Alice Jolly, The Times Literary Supplement

"Subtly weaving between sometimes harrowing personal reminiscences and perceptive and astute lessons on the art of dramatic writing, the book is a quiet revelation.” ― Caridad Svich, Contemporary Theatre Review

Praise for Our Cancers

“Our Cancers is an excellent example of Shelley’s secret alchemy, which turns 'to potable gold the poisonous waters which flow from death through life.' . . . Writing the truth, [O’Brien] says, ‘saved him.’ And it has produced an exquisite and terrible beauty in these pages.” ― Stephen Wilson, The Times Literary Supplement

“O’Brien explains that his obligation as a writer is ‘To tell others the truth, as skillfully as possible. To make art out of pain. To heal.’ Our Cancers tells his truth not only skillfully but masterfully, making from pain a lasting chronicle of art that traces fragmentary moments of healing over time.” ― J. D. Schraffenberger, North American Review

“These are sparse and beautiful poems to live by.” ― Sophie Thomas, Magma Poetry

Praise for War Reporter

“A masterpiece of truthfulness and feeling, and a completely sui generis addition not just to writing about war but to contemporary poetry” ― Patrick McGuinness, The Guardian

Praise for The Body of an American

“Poetic . . . Truthful . . . A lyrical and poignant work of theater” ― Alexis Soloski, The New York Times

“Hauntings, on a personal and national scale, guilt, obsession and depression form the subject of this dense, knotty play . . . a play that tightens its grip as it probes where war lives, and discovers we each carry it inside ourselves.” – The Guardian

“An engrossingly subjective docu-drama which feels psychologically acute and politically important . . . a really superb piece of theatre.” – The Stage

Praise for The House in Scarsdale

“[A] tour-de-force…in an inexorable forward motion rife with adventure, anger, frustration, and a certain joy of the chase.” – Stage Stuck

“Dan O’Brien has written an American gothic tale on a par with Pulitzer Prize winner Sam Shepard’s best works.” – TheaterMania

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