The body papers :

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Title :

The body papers : a memoir / Grace Talusan.

Title:

The body papers :

Author:

Talusan, Grace

Format:

Books

Physical Description:

xi, 255 pages: illustrations ; 19 cm

Edition:

First Restless Books hardcover edition.

ISBN:

9781632061836

9781632060242

Production / Publication Information:

New York : Restless Books Inc., 2019.

Summary:

Born in the Philippines, young Grace Talusan moves with her family to a New England suburb in the 1970s. At school, she confronts racism as one of the few kids with a brown face. At home, the confusion is worse: her grandfather's nightly visits to her room leave her hurt and terrified, and she learns to build a protective wall of silence that maps onto the larger silence practiced by her Catholic Filipino family. Talusan learns as a teenager that her family's legal status in the country has always hung by a thread--for a time, they were "illegal." Family, she's told, must be put first. The abuse and trauma Talusan suffers as a child affects all her relationships, her mental health, and her relationship with her own body. Later, she learns that her family history is threaded with violence and abuse. And she discovers another devastating family thread: cancer. In her thirties, Talusan must decide whether to undergo preventive surgeries to remove her breasts and ovaries. Despite all this, she finds love, and success as a teacher. On a fellowship, Talusan and her husband return to the Philippines, where she revisits her family's ancestral home and tries to reclaim a lost piece of herself. Not every family legacy is destructive. From her parents, Talusan has learned to tell stories in order to continue. The generosity of spirit and literary acuity of this debut memoir are a testament to her determination and resilience. In excavating and documenting such abuse and trauma, Talusan gives voice to unspeakable experience, and shines a light of hope into the darkness.

Language:

English

Personal Subject:

Talusan, Grace.

Subject Term:

Sexual abuse victims -- Great Britain -- Biography.

Cancer -- Patients -- Great Britain -- Biography.

Filipinos -- Great Britain -- Biography.

Immigrants -- Great Britain -- Biography.

SOCIAL SCIENCE / Sociology / General.

Holds: Copies:

Available:*

Material Type	Library	Call Number	Item Barcode	Location
Book	Searching... Andover - Memorial Hall Library	362.88 TAL	31330008798989	Searching... Unknown
Book	Searching... Burlington Public Library	BIO TALUSAN G	32116003641640	Searching... Unknown
Book	Searching... Chelmsford Public Library	BIOG/TALUSAN	31480011260541	Searching... Unknown
Book	Searching... Dracut - Moses Greeley Parker Memorial Library	BIO/TALUSAN, G.	31482002929613	Searching... Unknown
Book	Searching... Georgetown Peabody Library	B TALUSAN (PB)	32120001317922	Searching... Unknown
Book	Searching... Haverhill Public Library	362.88/TALUSAN G	31479006752017	Searching... Unknown
Book	Searching... Ipswich Public Library	XX(1040154.7)	1040154-7001	Searching... Unknown
Book	Searching... North Andover - Stevens Memorial Library	BIO TALUSAN	31478010128438	Searching... Unknown
Book	Searching... Rowley Public Library	921 TAL	32130000929452	Searching... Unknown
Book	Searching... West Newbury - G.A.R. Memorial Library	92 TALUSAN	32135001504618	Searching... Unknown

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Summary

Winner of The Restless Books Prize for New Immigrant Writing, Grace Talusan's critically acclaimed memoir The Body Papers , a New York Times Editors' Choice selection, powerfully explores the fraught contours of her own life as a Filipino immigrant and survivor of cancer and childhood abuse.

The abuse and trauma Talusan suffers as a child affects all her relationships, her mental health, and her relationship with her own body. Later, she learns that her family history is threaded with violence and abuse. And she discovers another devastating family thread: cancer. In her thirties, Talusan must decide whether to undergo preventive surgeries to remove her breasts and ovaries. Despite all this, she finds love, and success as a teacher. On a fellowship, Talusan and her husband return to the Philippines, where she revisits her family's ancestral home and tries to reclaim a lost piece of herself.

Not every family legacy is destructive. From her parents, Talusan has learned to tell stories in order to continue. The generosity of spirit and literary acuity of this debut memoir are a testament to her determination and resilience. In excavating such abuse and trauma, and supplementing her story with government documents, medical records, and family photos, Talusan gives voice to unspeakable experience, and shines a light of hope into the darkness.

Reviews (2)

Kirkus Review

A Filipino-American writer's debut memoir about how she overcame a personal history fraught with racism, sexual trauma, mental illness, and cancer.When Talusan (English/Tufts Univ.) and her student-parents moved from Manila to Chicago in the mid-1970s, they never dreamed they would eventually settle in Boston and live a traditional version of the American dream. Her father, Totoy, went on to enjoy a successful medical career, and the family joined the middle class; however, success was both fragile and costly. When Totoy's student visa expired, the family lived for almost a decade in the shadow of possible deportation. In school, teachers mistook Talusan for Chinese and misrepresented her Filipino heritage. Yet the author thrived, both in the classroom and at home. Then a pedophilic paternal grandfather, whom the author later learned had done "monstrous things to three generations of his family," began to live on and off with the family. Sexually abused from ages 7 to 13, the author suffered severe trauma that manifested in mysterious skin ailments and, later, insomnia, night terrors, nightmares, dissociation, and suicidal depression. Despite the learning difficulties her inner turmoil caused, she still managed to graduate from Tufts University. During college, Talusan learned that three maternal aunts had been diagnosed with breast cancer while another had been diagnosed with ovarian cancer. When she reached her mid-30s and was considering starting a family of her own with a husband she adored, the author voluntarily chose to have a double mastectomy. Later on, she opted for an oophorectomy that ended her dreams of motherhood. A return to the Philippines followed. Once in Manila, the author began a new quest to recover those lost parts of herself that had haunted her "like the insistent ache of a phantom limb." Moving and eloquent, Talusan's book is a testament not only to one woman's fierce will to live, but also to the healing power of speaking the unspeakable.A candidly courageous memoir. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

Booklist Review

Every day she didn't tell, Talusan thought she was saving her grandfather's life. There was a daytime grandfather and a nighttime grandfather, two different people in the same body. Talusan was seven when that nocturnal monster began the sexual assaults, which spanned seven years. I told myself that the pain and sacrifice of my hell moments were required for my family's success. Family was more important than anything in Talusan's extended Filipino American Catholic clan. That they were immigrants meant even tighter bonds, especially when she learns that her father's student visa, which provided legal U.S. entry when Talusan was two, is long expired, making deportation a viable threat. Growing up in a Boston suburb in the 1970s, Talusan faces racism at school, including erasure by so-called friends who insist, I think of you as white.' As an adult, the threat of cancer already killing younger and younger relatives forces radical decisions concerning her damaged body. Awarded the Restless Books Prize for New Immigrant Writing, Talusan bravely alchemizes unbearable traumas into a potent memoir remarkably devoid of self-pity, replete with fortitude and grace.--Terry Hong Copyright 2019 Booklist