Through simple, yet evocative language, author Julie D. Summers paints a panorama of time, offering snapshots of everything from her troubled childhood in post-war America to fairly recent heartbreaks. Her journey, detailed in OFF MY KNEES, FROM SKID ROW TO SUNSET BOULEVARD, is fast-paced and brutally frank, allowing the ferocity of Summers’ downward spiral to haunt her every small triumph and every relationship that’s agonizingly unthreaded. She keeps understandable space between herself and some events, since painful memories rarely lose their bite, but this maneuver only elevates her work. Rather than strip the narrative of its texture, it leads to a complete loss of self-consciousness, allowing Summers’ actions to remain untouched by false propriety, leaving the truth of her reality intact. She lays her ego at the reader’s feet, unmasks herself, in turn inspiring humility in those presented with the intimate details of her psyche. What’s more, the author shows an uncanny ability to pick out the most meaningful scenes from her memory, recreating them on the page with a particular focus on the senses. As a result, the reader is left with a kaleidoscope of locations and people, marked by smell, touch, taste and longing. Everything gains dimension because of the emotions that imbue Summers’ recollections. And with horrors and pleasures colliding, a breathless state of anticipation is gained, presenting the brittle fortunes that are often taken for granted.
Similarly, Summers delves into the most poignant and formative moments of her life with little reserve. These depictions are harrowing, making the reading experience truly visceral. The emotional torment she endures after giving up her baby is almost unbearable, her depiction of grief later in life, the splintering of her mind and body, is crippling. There’s a medley of time periods and customs, which both intensify and shred the complex family dynamics that pummel Summers’ mental health. As a woman who has outlived her demons, she casts light on the gloom that infected her youth, but not until the end, where love and hate no longer scrabble for space, but fuse. They become something else entirely, a spiritual equilibrium communicated through poignant reflections. This, again, comes across as a clever move on Summers’ part, since her well-earned serenity never encroaches on the past, never distorts the events that led her to this definitive release from pain. And so, a bodily journey is completed, one that stretches the limits of human imagination and empathy, and nurtures those who have pursued its resolution.
In OFF MY KNEES, FROM SKID ROW TO SUNSET BOULEVARD, Julie D. Summers discloses the story of her life, presenting the extent of human anguish, and rage, with phenomenal brutality. Both a rousing cautionary tale and a haunting confession, the memoir serves as a soothing word uttered to all those enduring the ache of existence.
~Neil Czeszejko for IndieReader