Moonlight On Linoleum, Terry Helwig
Moonlight On Linoleum, Terry Helwig
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Moonlight On Linoleum
A Daughter's Memoir

Author: Terry Helwig

Narrator: Ann Richardson

Unabridged: 7 hr 32 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Publisher: Oasis Audio

Published: 10/04/2011

Includes: Bonus Material Bonus Material Included

Synopsis

Even if others abandon you, you must never abandon yourself.This simple truth became Terry Helwig’s lifeline as she was forced to grow up too soon.Terry grew up the oldest of six girls in the big-sky country of the American Southwest, where she attended twelve schools in eleven years. Helwig’s stepfather Davy, a good-hearted and loving man, proudly purchased a mobile home to enable his family to move more easily from one oil town to another, where Davy eked out a living in the oil fields.Terry’s mother, Carola Jean, a wild rose whose love often pierced those who tried to claim her, had little interest in the confines of home and motherhood. In Davy’s absence, she sought companionship in local watering holes—a pastime she dubbed “visiting Timbuktu.” She repeatedly left Terry in charge of the household and her five younger sisters.Despite Carola Jean’s genuine attempts to “better herself,” her life spiraled ever downward as Terry struggled to keep the family whole. In the midst of transience and upheaval, Terry and her sisters forged an uncommon bond of sisterhood that withstood the erosion of Davy and Carola Jean’s marriage. But ultimately, to keep her own dreams alive, Terry had to decide when to hold on to what she loved and when to let go.Unflinching in its portrayal, yet told with humor and compassion, Terry Helwig’s luminous memoir, Moonlight on Linoleum, explores a family’s inner and outer landscapes of hope, despair, and redemption. It will make you laugh, cry, and hunger for more.

About The Author

Terry Helwig, who has a master’s degree in counseling, credits her interest in psychology to her childhood family. After 9/11, Helwig’s interest broadened to include her global family. She created The Thread Project: One World, One Cloth, www.threadproject.com, to encourage tolerance and compassionate community. For years, thousands of threads, sent by people from every continent, were woven into a diversified whole. The resulting tapestries have hung in the United Nations and St. Paul’s Chapel, near Ground Zero. Helwig also cowrote The Thread Narratives, which debuted in 2007 at The Thread Project exhibition in Charleston, South Carolina. Terry and her husband, Jim, divide their time between the coasts of southwest Florida and South Carolina. Their daughter, Mandy, an attorney, works in Washington, D.C.

Reviews

Goodreads review by Koren on July 02, 2018

I loved this coming of age memoir about a mother-daughter relationship and the dysfunctional family. The mother is very unstable. She moves from relationship to relationship and town to town and takes her children with her. At times the daughter is the one holding the family together when the parent......more

Goodreads review by EZRead on August 22, 2011

Sue Monk Kidd may have phrased it best in the foreword when she said the mother is someone that the reader would want to “rage at one moment and hug the next.” Though the book is Helwig’s memoir, in reality, the story is very much about her mother. The maternal love exhibited from a mother who can gi......more

Goodreads review by Elizabeth of Silver's Reviews on October 30, 2011

Welcome to the 50's.....Grandma and Grandpa taking care of children, Mom gone, only Dad. Doesn't sound like the 50's to me....sounds more like the way families are today. Moonlight on Linoleum is a nostalgic trip back to a life that should have been filled with stable families, but it had two sweet g......more

Goodreads review by Sharon on February 03, 2013

It's heartwarming to read a tale of poverty and hardship where people come out on top - family helps family and children don't blame their parents for what they've endured. This story echoes with the tales I've heard from my parents - about people they knew growing up in the 40's and 50's. Life was......more

Goodreads review by Doreen on July 01, 2012

As a member of ELLE Magazine's Non-Fiction Juror's Prize panel, I've read more memoirs in the past few years than I'd undertake on my own, so when Terry Helwig posits in Sue Monk Kidd's forward to this book, "[D]oes the world really need another memoir?" I found myself wearily nodding along. But Ms......more

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