Judith L. (jlautner) reviewed on + 105 more book reviews
This is quite the saga. We meet Jewel when young and follow her as she marries, has children, persuades her husband to move from Mississippi to California to obtain the best education she can for her Down Syndrome daughter, and all in all become quite a force in her family's life.
Brenda Kay is born in 1943, the youngest of six. Not much was known about Down Syndrome at the time (Brenda Kay was called a "Mongoloid Idiot" and her family encouraged to put her into an institution) but Jewel is the kind of mother we meet at all times. She is determined that her child will have the best life possible for however long she lives, and she is willing to overturn heaven and earth to get it.
I am always interested in how well the author portrays someone with a specific condition. I wasn't convinced that Lott had Brenda Kay right. Her manner of speaking is rather telegraphic, lacking in articles. It's true, from what I read, that Down Syndrome people generally speak less complex sentences but their main difficulty is actually physical: the difficulty in making the sounds.
Brenda Kay's attitude is often portrayed as "empty", as if she does not grasp what she is seeing or hearing and so tunes it out. I don't believe this is correct, either, from what I have read. As I understand it, a person with Down Syndrome is not stupid or unobservant but rather just slower to put things together. Of course there is a spectrum of cases that all fall under this label and we can imagine that Brenda Kay is reasonably well-functioning as compared to those who never are able to do basic things.
Ultimately I liked Jewel well enough and appreciated the effort she put into her family and her marriage. It is a story from another time in that sense.
Brenda Kay is born in 1943, the youngest of six. Not much was known about Down Syndrome at the time (Brenda Kay was called a "Mongoloid Idiot" and her family encouraged to put her into an institution) but Jewel is the kind of mother we meet at all times. She is determined that her child will have the best life possible for however long she lives, and she is willing to overturn heaven and earth to get it.
I am always interested in how well the author portrays someone with a specific condition. I wasn't convinced that Lott had Brenda Kay right. Her manner of speaking is rather telegraphic, lacking in articles. It's true, from what I read, that Down Syndrome people generally speak less complex sentences but their main difficulty is actually physical: the difficulty in making the sounds.
Brenda Kay's attitude is often portrayed as "empty", as if she does not grasp what she is seeing or hearing and so tunes it out. I don't believe this is correct, either, from what I have read. As I understand it, a person with Down Syndrome is not stupid or unobservant but rather just slower to put things together. Of course there is a spectrum of cases that all fall under this label and we can imagine that Brenda Kay is reasonably well-functioning as compared to those who never are able to do basic things.
Ultimately I liked Jewel well enough and appreciated the effort she put into her family and her marriage. It is a story from another time in that sense.
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