Augusta, Gone

A True Story

customer reviews

""I'm not telling you where I am. Don't try to find me."" Remember Go Ask Alice? Augusta, Gone is the memoir Alice's mother never wrote. A single parent, Martha Tod Dudman is sure she is giving her two children the perfect life, sheltering them from the wild tumult of her own youth. But when Augusta turns fifteen, things start to happen: first the cigarette, then the blue pipe and the little bag Augusta says is aspirin. Just talking to her is like sticking your hand in the garbage disposal. Martha doesn't know if she's confronting adolescent behavior, craziness, her own failures as a parent -- or all three. Augusta, Gone is the story of a girl who is doing everything to hurt herself and a mother who would try anything to save her. It is a sorrowful tale, but not a tragic one. Though the book charts a harrowing course through the troubled waters of adolescence, hope -- that mother and daughter will be reunited and will learn to love one another again -- steers them toward a shore of forgiveness and redemption. Written with darkly seductive grace, Augusta, Gone conjures the dangerous thrill of being drawn into the heart of a whirling vortex. This daring book will be admired for its lyricism, applauded for its courage, and remembered for its power. It demands to be read from start to finish, in one breathless sitting.

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Book details:

Simon & Schuster |
256 pages |
ISBN 9780743217224 |
April 2001

£7.99 List Price

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Praise

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“Elizabeth Wurtzel author of Prozac Nation and Bitch Augusta, Gone is entirely unexpected. It is a story about wild things and where they go. Martha Tod Dudman's writing is a shock -- so amazing, so simple, so precise, so correct.... ”

– and it told me why and how. Augusta, Gone may be mistaken for a mother-daughter story, a coolly sentimental tale of love and reconciliation between generations. But it is really about life and how it happens, how, in all its devastation, it just

“Molly Jong-Fast author of Normal Girl Augusta, Gone is a book long overdue, the most moving, honest memoir to come along in a very long time. I cried when I read this book, for all the misunderstood parents and their lost children.... ”

“Karen Karbo author of Motherhood Made a Man Out of Me Martha Tod Dudman reveals one of life's best-kept secrets: no one can rip out your heart like your own child. Augusta, Gone is a shock and a wonder, a two-ton truck on a... ”

“Ann Hood author of Ruby and Do Not Go Gentle Augusta, Gone is a devastating, powerful, frightening, lovely book that explores the enormous and mysterious bond between mothers and daughters. When I finished reading this book, I did... ”

“Harriet Lerner, Ph.D author of The Dance of Anger I thought I'd heard everything about the anxiety, guilt, weariness, vulnerability and love that go with the territory of motherhood. But no one -- and I mean no one”

– tells the story as truly as Martha Tod Dudman. Augusta, Gone is like a powerful spike that pierces the hypocrisy and sentimentality of all the myths that surround motherhood. This courageous book takes us to the heart of life itself, which does

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Read an Excerpt

Chapter 1

It wasn't always like this. We used to have wonderful times. There were times when I felt as if I had won two prizes: my two children walking up the road with me. My girl. My boy. Living together in Maine.

There were times when our world seemed perfectly balanced. Later it's easy to remember, when you're mad at yourself and furious with how things came out, to remember only yelling in the kitchen on a winter night and feeling overwhelmed at the office. But I have to remember, too, the happy times when we were all tucked up in bed reading Mary Poppins on a winter evening. When we were at the beach with...