"Home is Burning" book review

I really wanted to like this book. 

Dan Marshall’s ALS memoir has the emotional impact you’d expect, but it was ultimately sabotaged by the author’s attempt to convey his message in a crude fashion.  I’m not a conservative person when it comes to foul language, but there is a line between using foul language as a coping mechanism and being offensive, and I believe the author crosses that line a few times. 

Further, I’m not the kind of person who throws out the word misogyny with reckless abandon—but the women in Home is Burning are rarely ever presented in a positive light:  Dan’s mother (who is suffering from Non-Hodgkin’s Lymphoma, but is treated like the family gnat who wants attention); Dan’s little sister (who betrays the family by getting married and pregnant while the Marshall family is dealing with terminal illnesses); Dan’s long distance girlfriend (who interrupts Dan’s depressing stories to convey annoyance about things in her life, which Dan deems insignificant in comparison).  The only woman who comes out of this memoir without being openly resented is the household’s nanny, an illiterate elder foreign lady who is inserted as comic relief (she hates the family’s cats and openly talks about wanting to murder the cats). 

Even if the book didn’t have the unfortunate characterizations, my praise for it would be measured, as the middle portion is so repetitive that it dragged.  Combine the repetition with the aforementioned casual misogyny, Home is Burning wasn’t exactly a page turner.  It’s a shame. 

Grade:  D.