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The Middle Place

Kelly Corrigan
Hyperion (2008)
ISBN 9781401303365
Reviewed by Kam Aures for RebeccasReads (5/08)

While giving her two young girls a bath one night Kelly Corrigan discovers a lump in one of her breasts.  Immediately a flash of panic sweeps over her and her suspicions are confirmed at the doctor’s appointments that follow her discovery.  It is cancer.  As if this isn’t bad enough news she discovers that her father, whom she calls Greenie, also has cancer.  In fact he also had cancer in the past which Kelly just found out now.

“The Middle Place” follows both of their battles with cancer and alternates the present day events with flashbacks to growing up in the Corrigan household.  Kelly has a very close relationship with her father and at times it seems that she focuses more on getting him the best treatment rather than focusing on her own malady.  This book explores their tight-knit relationship in depth, back from when Kelly was young, all of the way up until today.

Kelly defines “The Middle Place” as “that sliver of time when parenthood and childhood overlap.”  It is that time of your life when you are still someone’s daughter but you are also a mother to your own children.  Close in age to Kelly and having young children that are in the same general age group as hers, I can completely relate to being in “The Middle Place” as this is the phase of life that I am in as well.  

Kelly’s story is a wonderful, touching memoir that is very hard to put down.  The book is a fast read and although about illness is also about celebrating and living life to the fullest.  Kelly is a very real person and she puts it all out there for us to read which makes for a very honest and compelling book.  I enjoyed the alternating between current events and chapters about what it was like to grow up as a Corrigan.  This format provided a lot of insight into how Kelly became the person that she is today.  I recommend “The Middle Place” to anyone who is at that phase in their life, to anyone battling a disease, or to anyone who loves a well-written memoir.

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