Tilting: A Memoir
by Nicole Harkin
This title was previously available on NetGalley and is now archived.
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Pub Date 22 Jun 2017 | Archive Date 28 Sep 2017
Description
We only learned about our father’s girlfriend after he became deathly ill and lay in a coma 120 miles from our home.
Overhearing the nurse tell Linda—since I was nine I had called my mom by her first name—about the girlfriend who came in almost every day to visit him when we weren’t there confirmed that the last moment of normal had passed us by without our realizing it. Up to then our family had unhappily coexisted with Dad flying jumbo jets to Asia while we lived in Montana. We finally came together to see Dad through his illness, but he was once again absent from a major family event—unable to join us from his comatose state. This is the moment when our normal existence tilted.
Dad recovered, but the marriage ailed, as did Linda, with cancer. Our family began to move down an entirely different path with silver linings we wouldn’t see for many years.
In this candid and compassionate memoir Nicole Harkin describes with an Impressionist’s fine eye the evolution of a family that is quirky, independent, uniquely supportive, peculiarly loving and, most of all, marvelously human.
Featured Reviews
Shannon G, Reviewer
I was given this book as an advance reading copy from Netgalley, coz they are awesome.
Originally I read this book as being a memoir about the author and her Dad, but it ends up being about a lot more than that. Eldest daughter Nicole is precocious and inquisitive, dismissive of her three siblings and adoring of her pilot father who is often absent. The family live what looks like a regular if somewhat transitory life, with mum Linda caring for the children at home while Dad flies around the world. And if Linda drinks a little heavily, and Dad doesn't come home very often, that's just par for the course.
It's not until Nicole moves away to college and her Dad suffers from a mystery illness that puts him in a coma that the family starts to unravel. There's a girlfriend, and a fair bit of money missing, and when Dad finally wakes up, Nicole realised that he's not the man she'd always thought he was.
A touching look at family relationships, strength and forgiveness (or not), Tilting examines the roles people play when their families are turned upside down through divorce, financial hardship, and most tragically, cancer.
At times brutally honest, Harkin writes unflinchingly of her own shortcomings, giving what seems like a perfectly honest record of a family that is deeply flawed, but also deeply loved. I read Tilting of an evening and found it incredibly touching.
Janilyn K, Reviewer
Tilting is a story of survival. Surviving in a haphazard family. Surviving marital discord, divorce, sickness, estrangement, and fighting. This story has it all. Yet, the survivors discovered they were strong and to put aside their fighting and enjoy being siblings. A great read.
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