An Abbreviated Life: A Memoir - Paperback

by Ariel Leve (Author)

A beautiful, startling, and candid memoir about growing up without boundaries, in which Ariel Leve recalls with candor and sensitivity the turbulent time she endured as the only child of an unstable poet for a mother and a beloved but largely absent father, and explores the consequences of a psychologically harrowing childhood as she seeks refuge from the past and recovers what was lost.

Ariel Leve grew up in Manhattan with an eccentric mother she describes as "a poet, an artist, a self-appointed troublemaker and attention seeker." Leve learned to become her own parent, taking care of herself and her mother's needs. There would be uncontrolled, impulsive rages followed with denial, disavowed responsibility, and then extreme outpourings of affection. How does a child learn to feel safe in this topsy-turvy world of conditional love?

Leve captures the chaos and lasting impact of a child's life under siege and explores how the coping mechanisms she developed to survive later incapacitated her as an adult. There were material comforts, but no emotional safety, except for summer visits to her father's home in South East Asia--an escape that was terminated after he attempted to gain custody. Following the death of a loving caretaker, a succession of replacements raised Leve--relationships which resulted in intense attachment and loss. It was not until decades later, when Leve moved to other side of the world, that she could begin to emancipate herself from the past. In a relationship with a man who has children, caring for them yields clarity of what was missing.

In telling her haunting story, Leve seeks to understand the effects of chronic psychological maltreatment on a child's developing brain, and to discover how to build a life for herself that she never dreamed possible: An unabbreviated life.

Front Jacket

In this extraordinary memoir, Ariel Leve takes us through the looking glass into the life of an only child growing up under siege. The unconventional world Ariel inhabited was dominated by her mother, a gifted but unstable poet without boundaries or self-restraint. Mother and daughter lived in a penthouse on Manhattan's Upper East Side, the setting for raucous parties that attracted New York's cultural and intellectual elite: Gloria Steinem, Norman Mailer, and Andy Warhol, to name a few. For all its glamour, this was a universe that was neither predictable nor safe.

With her beloved father living in Southeast Asia, young Ariel was left to navigate an emotionally perilous landscape alone. It took four decades before she was able to make sense of the aftershocks of childhood. Unflinchingly, and with ferocious candor, Leve trains her writer's eye on the harrowing circumstances of her life with (and without) her mother, and transforms the chaos into art.

In stripped-down, elegant prose, Leve paints an indelible portrait of her upbringing and the long fight to tunnel her way out of the darkness. An Abbreviated Life heralds the arrival of a fearless new voice in the literary firmament.

Back Jacket

In this extraordinary memoir, Ariel Leve takes us through the looking glass into the life of an only child growing up under siege. The unconventional world Ariel inhabited was dominated by her mother, a gifted but unstable poet without boundaries or self-restraint. Mother and daughter lived in a penthouse on Manhattan's Upper East Side, the setting for raucous parties that attracted New York's cultural and intellectual elite: Gloria Steinem, Norman Mailer, and Andy Warhol, to name a few. For all its glamour, this was a universe that was neither predictable nor safe.

With her beloved father living in Southeast Asia, young Ariel was left to navigate an emotionally perilous landscape alone. It took four decades before she was able to make sense of the aftershocks of childhood. Unflinchingly, and with ferocious candor, Leve trains her writer's eye on the harrowing circumstances of her life with (and without) her mother, and transforms the chaos into art.

In stripped-down, elegant prose, Leve paints an indelible portrait of her upbringing and the long fight to tunnel her way out of the darkness. An Abbreviated Life heralds the arrival of a fearless new voice in the literary firmament.