In the Middle of thingsquest

In his book In the Middle of Things A Fragmented Coming of Age Memoir Vince Puzick explores his relationship with his father an emotionally distant and physically absent figure for most of Puzick s life His father first left when Vince was 12 surfacing unpredictably for the next five years After Vince turned 17 he had no contact with his father for five years During that time Puzick quit college twice worked in two different factories and struggled to find his own path shape his own story Vince examines his distant relationship with his father through different the unpredictability of chaos theory the chronological unfolding of events a self help book called Psycho Cybernetics popular in the early and mid 1960s family dynamics theory and even through a literary lens As he takes steps to understand his father Vince also traces the path of his own coming of age Different and unlikely voices influenced decisions he faced on his a Vietnam veteran poets Adrienne Rich and Yusef Komunyakaa the work of Virginia Satir and a Silicon Valley attorney named Bill Fenwick These people and the myriad experiences along the way force Vince to consider and reconsider the factors that shaped his early life with and without his father s presence Although the book is primarily a father son story that relationship doesn t happen in a vacuum As time lengthens and the distance between them increases as opportunities to connect in any meaningful ways disappear Puzick explores family and inheritance alcoholism as a family dynamic the world of work and the journey through loss grief and fragmentation to wholeness sobriety and forgiveness In what he describes as a process of accumulation and letting go Vince ultimately shapes his own life s story In pondering the question how do we come to know our parents he comes to a deeper understanding of himself In the Middle of Things A Fragmented Coming of Age MemoirWhen Trauma Becomes PoetryThis memoir meanders through the author s various stages of a tortured relationship with his father and folds back on itself in heartbreakingly beautiful layers It is than a coming of age or sobriety journey It weaves in generational trauma self discovery and the healing power of nature the arts and the occasional accidental mentor I particularly enjoyed reading this because I grew up in the same area as the author and have lived or had relatives live in several of his far flung haunts The descriptions of local environs rang true and brought back memories. In the Middle of thingstudio This is a must read for any adult child of an alcoholic or one who has survived their own sobriety journey It s also perfect for anyone caught between blue and white collar worlds Finally anyone with the urge to express themselves through writing will be able to relate to the author s on again off again attempts There s a lot to unpack here and the writers does it artfully Kindle Edition