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Homeschooled: A Memoir
Stefan Merrill Block
286 pages
Harlequin Trade Publishing
One caveat before I begin this review; I know the author. I took a writing class with him at Center for Fiction in Brooklyn. That was why I picked this particular memoir to read. It was not why I enjoyed it, however. I liked it because it was well written and it resonated even though my life and upbringing was very different from his. The mark of a good memoir is that it will connect with readers even when the subject or life of the writer is not at all the same. The writer will draw in the reader and find commonalities among the differences.
Contrary to the title of the memoir, the subject of it is not really home schooling. There is no question that it figures in prominently, of course. However, the subject is really the relationship between the writer and his mother, who was obviously very troubled. Home schooling and how it was done in the writer’s life serves to highlight this relationship and as a metaphor. It is on this level that most readers, including myself, can relate. Many of us, if we were motivated enough and talented enough, could write a memoir about some relationship that affected us greatly, often though not exclusively in a negative way. I saw myself and my father in this situation, with our relationship, like the one between Stefan and his mother, as one that scarred me for life, even as much as it has propelled me to forge a very different relationship with my own daughter.
This was a very fast read, also mark of a successful memoir. I actually wanted just a little more from it. While I learned a great deal about the relationship, I felt like I was missing a little context about the time period, especially in Plano, Texas, being a born and bred New Yorker. From my knowledge of the author and from a few things in the text, I had some rough information about the time period but would have liked to have had a little more context about what Plano was like, and how homeschooling was there as compared in other places in the country at the time. Nonetheless, I can highly recommend this to those who enjoy non celebrity memoirs (my own preference, actually).
Thank you to NetGalley and Harlequin Trade Publishing for providing me with an advanced copy of this memoir in exchange for my honest opinions.
Four and a half stars rounded up.
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