Product Description

"The Middle Place is about calling home. Instinctively. Even when all the paperwork -- a marriage license, a notarized deed, two birth certificates, and seven years of tax returns -- clearly indicates you're an adult, but all the same, there you are, clutching the phone and thanking God that you're still somebody's daughter."

For Kelly Corrigan, family is everything.

At thirty-six, she had a marriage that worked, a couple of funny, active kids, and a weekly newspaper column. But even as a thriving adult, Kelly still saw herself as George Corrigan's daughter. A garrulous Irish-American charmer from Baltimore, George was the center of the ebullient, raucous Corrigan clan. He greeted every day by opening his bedroom window and shouting, "Hello, World!" Suffice it to say, Kelly's was a colorful childhood, just the sort a girl could get attached to.

Kelly lives deep within what she calls the Middle Place -- "that sliver of time when parenthood and childhood overlap" -- comfortably wedged between her adult duties and her parents' care. But she's abruptly shoved into a coming-of-age when she finds a lump in her breast -- and gets the diagnosis no one wants to hear. And so Kelly's journey to full-blown adulthood begins. When George, too, learns he has late-stage cancer, it is Kelly's turn to take care of the man who had always taken care of her -- and show us a woman as she finally takes the leap and grows up.

Kelly Corrigan is a natural-born storyteller, a gift you quickly recognize as her father's legacy, and her stories are rich with everyday details. She captures the beat of an ordinary life and the tender, sometimes fractious moments that bind families together. Rueful and honest, Kelly is the prized friend who will tell you her darkest, lowest, screwiest thoughts, and then later, dance on the coffee table at your party.

Funny, yet heart-wrenching, The Middle Place is about being a parent and a child at the same time. It is about the special double-vision you get when you are standing with one foot in each place. It is about the family you make and the family you came from -- and locating, navigating, and finally celebrating the place where they meet. It is about reaching for life with both hands -- and finding it.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #4527 in Books
• Published on: 2008-01-08
• Released on: 2008-01-08
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 272 pages

From Publishers Weekly
Newspaper columnist Corrigan was a happily married mother of two young daughters when she discovered a cancerous lump in her breast. She was still undergoing treatment when she learned that her beloved father, who'd already survived prostate cancer, now had bladder cancer. Corrigan's story could have been unbearably depressing had she not made it clear from the start that she came from sturdy stock. Growing up, she loved hearing her father boom out his morning HELLO WORLD dialogue with the universe, so his kids would feel like the world wasn't just a safe place but was even rooting for you. As Corrigan reports on her cancer treatment—the chemo, the surgery, the radiation—she weaves in the story of how it felt growing up in a big, suburban Philadelphia family with her larger-than-life father and her steady-loving mother and brothers. She tells how she met her husband, how she gave birth to her daughters. All these stories lead up to where she is now, in that middle place, being someone's child, but also having children of her own. Those learning to accept their own adulthood might find strength—and humor—in Corrigan's feisty memoir.
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Review
"Kelly Corrigan's utterly absorbing memoir, The Middle Place, is wry, smart, and often heart-wrenching. Corrigan takes us down memory lane and then, at the same time, down some other, darker road most of us hope never to travel. Yet we follow her all the way, quite willingly, thanks to her sharp eye and her great sense of humor." -- Cynthia Kaplan, author of Why I'm Like This and Leave the Building Quickly

"The Middle Place is inspiring, luminous, and true. Reading this memoir, I felt like an honorary member of the Corrigan family . . . Kelly Corrigan is a wonderful writer." -- Luanne Rice, author of What Matters Most

"An amazing story told with steep honesty, buckets of humor and, above all, integrity. The Middle Place is memoir at its highest form." -- Darin Strauss, author of The Real McCoy and Chang and Eng

"Kelly Corrigan has a great sense of humor, an honest voice, and a brilliant way of telling it like it is -- but that's just for starters. It's her heart that really counts. The Middle Place is a love letter to family and home and life." -- Linda Greenlaw, author of The Hungry Ocean and Slipknot

"Kelly Corrigan takes what might have been a fairly standard story of survival, and reframes it, most charmingly, as a coming-of-age narrative. We see here a headstrong girl, under the most severe adversity, turn into a genuinely strong woman." -- Carolyn See, author of Making a Literary Life

About the Author
Kelly Corrigan is, more than anything else, the mother of two young girls. While they're at school, Kelly writes a newspaper column and the occasional magazine article and possible chapters of a novel. She is also the creator of CircusOfCancer.org, a website to teach people how to help a friend through breast cancer. Kelly lives outside San Francisco with her husband, Edward Lichty.

Customer Reviews

a careful dance between lightheartedness and gravity
Kelly Corrigan does an amazing job at recounting her experience of dealing with cancer with 2 very young children. During this traumatic experience, she learns her father who is her idol is diagnosed with cancer as well. The most remarkable aspect of this novel is how light-hearted Corrigan manages to keep her tale while alternating between stories of growing up as a Corrigan between her day-to-day experience fighting cancer. I was laughing most of the time while fighting back tears some of the time. I LOVED this book and strongly recomment it to everyone.

Exploring the spaces in between
A treasure of a read, The Middle Place is as inspirational as it is real. Artfully weaving together the chapters of Kelly's life, The Middle Place is both a memoir and an opportunity to reflect on what ultimately matters most. Kelly explains that the "middle place" is the place between being a child and being a parent. It seems as if it is also the space between life and death, hope and despair, vulnerability and empowerment, connection and independence, what-could-be and what-is-now, and beginnings and endings. The Middle Place takes readers to dark places, light places, and all places in between.

Spot on!
Corrigan's ability to explain things that some of us know and others are yet to find out is astounding. She hones in on those crucial moments that make us who we are, but surrounds us with great memories that make up our lives.

So well written and funny that I read it straight through both times and plan to make sure everyone I grew up with reads it too.

If you have a child or have lost a parent, The Middle Place speaks to you, bringing to life the things deep in your heart.