Dandelion: Memoir of a Free Spirit
by Catherine James
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Book Summary Information
Author: Catherine JamesEdition: Hardcover
Audio: English (Original Language); English (Unknown); English (Published)
Published: 2007-10-02
ISBN: 0312367813
Number of pages: 240
Publisher: St. Martin's Press
Book Reviews of Dandelion: Memoir of a Free Spirit
Book Review: book review- Dandelion by Catherine James
Summary: 4 Stars
Here's a plug for someone I've never met in the form of a book review. It's a newly released autobiography called "Dandelion" by Catherine James. Her style is similar to her compatriot groupie Pamela Des Barres, but less fluttery. Its plainer style actually serves her content well, for this isn't just the tale of amusing sexual encounters among the paleontological dig-sites of the usual 60's dinosaurs, but one of real, live, actual survival.
When you see photographs of her, even now, you'll note the incontestibility that Ms. James has always been a stunner in the looks department. Her family albums of film stars and singers show this was clearly inherited as well as polished by her own self-maintenance and style. However, she was not only the product of the gorgeous genetics of a Hollywood, entertainment-enmeshed family, but also of absolutely off the charts family dysfunction, so vile that it seems part Charles Dickens and part Edgar Allen Poe, hardly something you'd associate still happening in the 20th century of her childhood.
The journey away from horribleness remains the heart of the story, no matter what era. I found a strange, personal recognition in her tale of the Mother From Hell, insofar as it showed me even if my own troublesome family had been as creative in the arts as hers, there still would have been the same friction: toxic is toxic, and unconstrained selfishness in parents is poisonous to children.
Reviewers seem to be divided on this book, some contesting that it may be lightweight in tone by someone of not overwhelming accomplishment. Others note that's it would be a fascinating read even without the name-droppy stuff. Its subhead is "Memoir of a Free Spirit," and the tabloid-esque encounters she found as both pursuer and pursued in the heady days of the 1960's was a solution that suited her in her escape from horribleness. Metaphorically thrown into the deep end of the pool to drown, she instead learned to swim quite well enough to fashion her own happy ending. I claim take "Dandelion" for what it is, an unusual person's unusual tale of survival, with her journey attaining quite a torrent of enlightenment about family dynamics and personal relationships, useful for herself or for any other reader. Good stuff.
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