Product Description

The story of a girl who is doing everything to hurt herself and a mother who would try anything to try to save her.

True, she had stopped coming down for breakfast. Stayed up in her room, ran out the door late for school, missed the bus and had to have a ride. But you think, well, that's how they are, aren't they, teenagers? And you try to remember how you were, but you were different and the times were different and it was so long ago. And she's suddenly so angry at you, but then, another time, she's just the same. She's just your little girl. You sit with her and you talk about something, or you go shopping for school clothes and everything seems all right. And you forget how you stood in her room and how the center of your stomach felt so cold. When you found the cigarette. When you found the blue pipe. When you found the little bag she said was aspirin.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #454647 in Books
• Published on: 2002-04-01
• Released on: 2002-04-02
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 256 pages

Amazon.com Review
Parents are advised to approach this wrenching memoir with caution--it will evoke all their worst fears. It's not just that Martha Tod Dudman frankly delineates her daughter Augusta's descent into drinking, smoking, drug use, and truancy, as well as casually lying about all of it. Dudman also acknowledges her own feelings of isolation, despair, and incredible guilt. Has she caused Augusta's behavior? Is it because she divorced Augusta's father? Did she spend too many hours working at her family-owned radio network? Is Augusta mimicking Dudman's own troubled teen years, when she got thrown out of high school for smoking pot? There aren't any easy answers, merely an agonizing litany of fears realized as Augusta comes and goes in her mother's house, vanishing for days at a time, moods ranging from manipulative to sullen to openly defiant, until things get so bad that Dudman enrolls her first in a wilderness program, then in a school program for troubled kids. Nothing miraculous happens, only more ugly confrontations, until Augusta finally runs away. Through the turmoil, however, we can see the troubled girl slowly and painfully turning a corner. Dudman's plain, punchy prose perfectly conveys the terror of a parent watching her child's life, along with her own, careen off the tracks, yet she also captures the charm and vitality of her "impossible, enraging, engaging, infuriating" daughter. As upsetting as this narrative often gets, there's always a trace of hope that Augusta and her family will pull through. --Wendy Smith

From Publishers Weekly
"It's like sticking my hand into the garbage disposal," writes Dudman in this poetic, painfully frank memoir about being a mom to a teenage daughter who lies, runs away and uses drugs. Her story of Augusta's descent into teen hell, and her own attempts to keep her safe, will be welcomed by parents unnerved by the current media focus on risky teen behavior and the sudden deluge of books on the topic, including Adair Lara's similar mother-daughter tale, Hold Me Close, Let Me Go (Forecasts, Dec. 11, 2000), and therapist Ron Taffel and Melinda Blau's The Second Family (see review above). Like Lara, Dudman refuses to give up on her daughter despite tears that "jump out of my face like gravel" and her daughter's stealing from her, screaming at her and lying. In her attempt to describe everything that happened, Dudman acknowledges "this is how it was and it was nothing like this," as she captures the desperation that led her to call the cops on her daughter, and then with her ex-husband to send Augusta to a wilderness camp in Idaho--where Augusta attempted to kill herself--and to a clean-teen school in Oregon. Through it all, Dudman kept working at a high-powered job, cared for her teenage son, Jack, 16 months younger than Augusta, and walked to maintain her own sanity. Dudman, who was also wild when she was young, has no idea looking back how either she or her daughter found their way home, but her story proves that even the most difficult childhoods may end safely. Agent, Betsy Lerner. (Mar. 8) Forecast: Supported by a 10-city tour that will be crowned by an appearance on the Today Show, Dudman's memoir will strike a chord with readers who may not relate to the more unconventional family arrangement in San Francisco Chronicle columnist Adair Lara's Hold Me Close, Let Me Go.

Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal
"Normal was gone," writes divorced boomer Dudman in her powerful account of her daughter Augusta's stormy adolescence. Drugs, smoking, truancy, lies, sex, stealing Augusta, 15, did it all in a household that was soft on rules and heavy on permissiveness and love. Finally, Dudman sent Augusta from their Maine home out to an Idaho school where rebellious teens can begin to get their lives in order. Yet even there, nothing works. Dudman is an exceptionally skilled writer, drawing readers into her emotional turmoil and transforming an ugly story into a bold, redemptive tale. When Augusta continues to run away, to defy even the strictest authorities in other programs, in other states, Dudman comes to realize she can't really "fix" anything in her child's life, though her daughter comes home at the end. "You don't get to give up on your kids," she writes. "We were all just thrashing through the woods in darkness." Like Dudman, Lara is a mother with a not-so-innocent past, and in raising her daughter Morgan, 13, there were also no rules, no discipline, no restraints. A San Francisco Chronicle columnist, Lara offers a less poignant story, peppered with more day-by-day "we did this/we did that" vignettes. Morgan's dad, Jim (Lara's ex), lives upstairs, and, like many children of divorced parents, Morgan is skilled at playing one parent against the other. Complicating the mix is Lara's father, who abandoned the family years ago and reappears to demand the family's attention. Finally, Lara says "no" to Morgan and demands that she attend school, quit using drugs, go to counseling, and consider an abortion if she wants to come home. These are stories of battles and love. Lara's is good; Dudman's is unforgettable. [Dudman was previewed in Prepub Alert, LJ 11/15/00, and Lara in Prepub Alert, LJ 11/1/00.] Linda Beck, Indian Valley P.L., Telford, P.
- Linda Beck, Indian Valley P.L., Telford, PA
Copyright 2001 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Customer Reviews

Augusta, Gone
I don't usually read memoirs, but I recently decided to take in a few written by the locals, specifically Stephen King's On Writing, as well as Martha Dudman's Augusta, Gone. I can only conclude that there is something about the air up here in Maine that promotes excellent writing. I expected something special from Mr. King and he delivered. (Thank you Mr. King. You're terrific!) However, I have to tell you, Dudman's book takes the crown. Augusta, Gone is a riveting book about the stamina of true love. In the book, Dudman is physically and spiritually revived by her daily walks, but she runs an endless marathon to save her daughter. As the Publisher's Weekly review attests, Dudman's book will be "welcomed by, parents unnerved by the current media focus on risky teen behavior." Read it with interest if this compelling and all too timely topic interests you. However, if you simply love good writing, run, don't walk to your nearest bookstore (or computer terminal) and order this book! For those who like to read to escape, this is not a depressing book. It is a sit on the edge of your seat thriller. Moreover, Dudman uses compelling imagery throughout that had me thinking I was sitting in her skin. I kept waiting for the point when I would lose my wind, when I would begin to say "Yeah, yeah, yeah." but it never happened. How did she keep the pacing of the book so brisk and yet sustainable? Was it all that practice walking? She is brilliant, but she is touchable, embracable. She is one of us. I will watch the trajectory of this book with interest. Oprah, please tune in. It is time for a memoir.

Good Writing, Good Parenting
As a mother of a teenager, I am amazed that anyone can judge another person's ability to parent! In the courageous tale of her journey into teenage hell, Martha bares her innermost soul. She shares with us a look into the heart of a mother who suspects she has somehow failed her daughter and will do anything to get her precious child back. But how does one do that? I defy anyone to answer this question in a definitive way. She makes no apologies for her behavior or the behavior of her daughter - it is what it is. And therein lies the exquisite beauty of this book. What parent of a teenager hasn't felt the dumbfounded fury at the secretive/suspicious/quarrelsome/flippant attitude of their 12 - 15 year old child? Martha manages to put into words that which defies description. All the feelings of frustration, anger, insecurity, self-blame, helplessness the average parent feels when trying to deal with this difficult time of life. This book was not meant to be an example of parenthood, but simply one woman's experience. In so doing, she manages to convey the spectrum of the experience, including and most importantly, hope.

I truly loved this book. I loved it for its honesty, for its emotion, for its message that those of us who are experiencing a teenager's angst and confusion are not alone. I loved it for its tremendous courage. I'm not sure I would have had the guts to send my child away as Martha did. But I'm convinced that had she not, the ending would have been different. Martha Tod Dudman was not a bad parent. She was (and is) a human parent. Aren't we all?

An extraordinary tale of ordinary despair�and hope
Augusta, Gone is must reading for anyone who has ever been or plans to be a parent. More mothers and fathers than will probably admit it have experienced the anxiety and despair that Martha Dudman describes in this harrowing account, as her teenage daughter Augusta-angry, rebellious, perhaps even suicidal-slips away from her day by day. Augusta curses her mother, fights her, screams, shouts, does drugs, smokes, drinks, runs away. The author is in despair, doesn't know where to turn. She alternates between fighting to regain her child's love and looking for a safe place where she will be cared for-and far away. Her pain is made all the deeper by her awareness-and her rebellious daughter's-that she has been there herself. Each step deeper into the morass of alienation and despair is painfully told, and it is hard to imagine how either Augusta or her mother will ever return to a sane, sharing relationship.

This book has particular relevance today, as the news headlines are filled with stories of angry young people losing control. Augusta never takes up a gun, but she is not so different from the teenagers in Colorado, California and Pennsylvania whose anger has led them to terrible acts.

The book is not an easy read; the journey through it is wrenching, even exhausting, but it is beautifully written, and we are left at the end with hope-and what more can a parent ask?

Martha Dudman set aside a promising career in radio before she took up her pen to write this book. It was where she should have been all along. She is a gifted writer: her prose is exquisite, her imagery dead on, her use of language flawless.