NAKED reads like a long phone call rather than a memoir. Author Julie Freed is a mathematician, and while her descriptions of her own emotional turmoil is evocative, her descriptions of setting and factual information are extremely clunky and robotic. In an attempt to give some background information on Mississippi she makes note of the confederate flag, saying “Some view the confederate flag, or rebel flag, as one of independence, rebellion, and southern pride, while for others it signifies oppression and racism.” The tone and delivery feel more like a very basic history book than an adult memoir. The author divulges a lot of details about sex and bodily functions but uses extremely cold, clinical language, thereby lessening some of the powerful intimacy her book could create.
The dissolution of a marriage can be a trite subject for a memoir, but the specific circumstances surrounding this one sometimes transcend the cliches. Overlapping her separation with the experience of seeing a house decimated in Hurricane Katrina sometimes enriches the memoir. Yet, at other times it lends itself to platitudes like “The good and bad part about hurricanes is that you know about them well ahead of time. Maybe the same can be said about some divorces”. The over-the-top title itself makes that statement, but Freed hammers that point and that analogy home several times thereafter, anyway.
The strongest passages in the book detail the physical labor she did alongside her father, post-Katrina, and the rebuilding, post-Katrina, post-divorce segment of the book is the strongest. Freed may not write the most stirring sentences, but her indomitable drive and spirit come through the text in a way that makes the reader eagerly turn the pages.
Though the writing style detracts from the narrative at times, NAKED: STRIPPED BY A MAN AND HURRICANE KATRINA captures a uniquely tumultuous moment in one woman’s life.
Reviewed by Erinn Black Salge for IndieReader.