Friday 21 December 2012

Sara Lunsford's Sweet Hell on Fire: A Memoir ...


I just read a fucking good book.  Then I read a couple of the reviews of it on GoodReads and thought "wtf?!" So I'll repeat what I said there and tell you what I thought.

Sweet Hell on Fire is honest and inspiring - rare traits in this increasingly disingenuous age. Talking about "narrative arcs" and "storytelling voice" in relation to a memoir like this is redundant, not to mention somehow snarkily oblivious, if you will. This is life lived (almost) one day at a time. You don't get arcs in life, you just get life.

Lunsford's account of her year is brutal and you get a no holds barred sense of a quest for self - or, more appropriately, the regaining of self - whether she thought she wanted it or not. It's quite something to sit down and open yourself up like that. There might well be some self-justification in there, but you'd have to be an insensate ass not to see that this is far outweighed by the honesty with which she deals with herself and her actions during her descent and ascent - she's human for goodness' sake!

I read it in two sittings. It showed me things about myself that I need to deal with, that I've been shilly-shallying about with for far too long. I need to dispense with my apathy and kick myself back into the game. Lunsford showed me how to own it. I'm not going to let either her or myself down.

Thank you, Sara.

Get the Kindle Edition here
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Sweet-Hell-Fire-Memoir-ebook/dp/B008NC9DAU/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1356126793&sr=8-1

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