Up from the Blue audiobook

Set in the 70s, during the era of bussing and all that entailed, UP FROM THE BLUE tells the story of family dysfunction stemming from a mother afflicted with severe manic depression. We start with the girl now grown up and about to have her own child, then we travel back in time to her as a child struggling to understand what is wrong with her mother. The story moves at a fast pace, with well timed twists and turns. Compelling but not disingenuous. It is real and raw. To me, this is a story about fear, it’s path to prejudice, and how the transcendent power of love conquers it. The character with the courage to love unconditionally is Tillie, a very flawed 8 year old with a huge engine of inner rage rumbling inside her. Tillie’s mother is an embarrassment. She is sick, bizarrely different, and a potential threat to her husband who has a very political Pentagon job. Tillie is well aware of her mother’s issues, so much so, she keeps to herself, debates whether or not to invite friends over. But despite this awareness, Tillie allows herself to fall in love with her mother, because she allows herself to go beyond the sickness and see a unique take her mother brings to life. Tillie’s love is powerful and frustrating. It is the heartbeat of the novel. But it is not enough, because it cannot conquer everyone else’s fear which prevents the mother from seeking help. The writer brilliantly chooses to tell this story against the backdrop of bussing, subtly comparing racial prejudice to prejudice towards the mentally ill. Stigmatism--which comes of course from the fear of the unknown-- has the same effect on the person of color stepping into a white school in the 70s, as it does on the mentally ill woman forced to live in a military world, where structure and conformity are demanded. As Bus 14 brings in the African Americans, everyone stands back and gawks, as if monsters from another planet have arrived. They are there, but they are not there, reminding us of Tillie’s mother--she is there, but she is not there. One African American girl is so frightened of being the only girl of color in her class, she is allowed time to herself in an office. Again reminding us of Tillie’s mother, so frightened of the world of sameness, she hides from everyone. And Tillie’s reach beyond the fear and prejudice to connect with the girl at school again reminds us of Tillie reach beyond fear and prejudice to see all the good in her mother. This is a tragic story but it is not depressing, because it has grace and hope. If it were simply another book about family dysfunction, it wouldn’t have staying power. But it does have staying power because of what the story says beyond the words. About her relationship with her mother, Tillie says once “It wasn’t perfect, but I never needed perfect.”And that is just perfect.

If you are a parent, a child with a parent suffering from depression, or a parent going through depression yourself, this is a MUST READ. I was immediately gripped during the beginning chapters where Tillie begins labor. Because I've been there, I could instantly connect with her, but anyone who hasn't given birth would feel the frantic feelings described in the beginning. And then it takes you back to Tillie's childhood. You get to see the inner workings of a troubled military family. Phil, the older son who does no wrong because he wants to be the best soldier he can be. Colonel Harris- a high ranking military official who runs a strict household. Mara, the mother, who is so obviously depressed and on the brink of implosion, incapable of mothering the two children and the subject of whispers amongst the perfect military wives/mothers. And then Tillie- an unruly yet lovable, eight year old girl. Tillie adores her mother, she can see the good in her unlike everyone else and defends her mom. She senses she's likely a disappointment to her father and her brother can't be bothered with her. Yet she feels like her mother is hers alone and you can really relate to her feelings for her mom. Because as children- we've all been there. No matter what a mothers (or fathers) faults are it doesn't matter because you are in love with them. They are perfect to you if to nobody else.The greatness of this story as that even though it's a novel you feel like it's real. You are hoping that the mother can just pull herself together and be the mom she wanted to be. You are hoping that the father could just see that there is something medically wrong with her and that it isn't her fault, she truly isn't capable of pulling it together on her own. And then you feel this immense sadness for the children who don't understand and you just want to assure them that no matter what- their parents love them.Now, you know I always try to read a story and bring some of my own life experience to it and this one was no different. For years, since Olivia was born, I have struggled with depression. I have felt so awful that I thought I'd be better off dying, and I thought everyone else would be better without me. I've been so happy that I look at those times and wonder what the hell was I thinking. But most days? I'm not in the middle. I'm sad a lot and sometimes when driving alone I wonder what it would be like to just keep driving and never come back. To just start up new somewhere..anywhere..because I can't bear the feeling that I am a terrible mother, a terrible wife, a terrible friend, a terrible daughter, etc. I may not be any of these things but a lot of days I feel this way. And while I can take all the medication I want I know that's the only thing keeping me from dangling too far down. So I could sympathize with Mara through the whole book. She wants to be everything to everyone, she wants to be a good wife and mother but she just isn't able. But she loves her children anyways. And every attempt she makes to do better it was always for them. So no lie, I cried when reading this and found myself nodding and saying, "Yes-- that's really how it is!" There is a part in the book where Mara tells Tillie, "I'm trying. I'm trying for you, ok?" and that? Just made me so sad because I remember saying this to Olivia when she was just a week old. I was alone at home with her, and she never stopped crying. I would rock, crying myself, and tell her I was trying, just for her.I highly recommend this book. The end for Mara? Made me so sad and I felt awful for everyone. But the end of the book for Tillie? Gave me hope. Because she was a mom and it made me think that maybe, even though it was all awful, it really had a happy ending.

This story will stay with me for a long time and be extremely hard to describe without spoilers, but here goes: The novel starts with Tillie, pregnant with her first child and alone because her husband has traveled out of the country for a job, going into labor. To complicate matters even more, she has recently moved back to the Washington DC area and hasn't even unpacked enough to find her phone. Using the neighbors phone, she calls the only number she knows, her father who she has avoided contact with so much he isn't even aware she is married, pregnant and living in the same city. Tillie avoids her father because "when I'm around him, I am eight again, trapped in that year that scarred us all."The majority of the book goes on to tell the story of Tillie, her older brother Phil and her parents, Mara and the Colonel who are having marital problems. The Colonel is rigid and demanding while Mara is a free spirit. The story is told from Tillie's perspective but it is clear that her mother has mental health issues. This was a powerful, haunting story.

Up From the Blue is a first novel by Susan Henderson, a New York writer with a couple of Pushcart Prize nominations to her credit. It came out last September (HarperCollins $15.99) but I only discovered it last week, thanks to a review in Shelf Awareness, my favorite e-newsletter about the book trade. The fact that I read it in just two days has more to do with how good a book it is, than my deadline for this column. The ending brought me to tears, and an urge to call up the author to find out if this novel was indeed her story. But I get ahead of myself.Tillie Harris is eight years old and her mother is becoming unglued. Her family lives on an Air Force base in Albuquerque but her dad’s work on missile guidance systems means that they will move soon to Washington, DC. It is 1975. (Actually the novel opens with Tillie rushing to the hospital with premature labor symptoms. Her husband is in Paris and her estranged father is the only relative she can call. But it is her childhood memories that take over the narrative.) Momma is a misfit among the military wives: she paints her front door purple and ignores the social protocols of military life. She has stopped making meals or doing the wash. Mostly she sleeps on the couch, barely rousing herself to tuck in to bed Tillie and her older brother Phil. When moving day comes, Tillie is left behind for two weeks with her father’s prissy secretary. And when she finally gets to fly to Washington her mother is nowhere to be found. To Tillie’s frantic pleas, her father will only say that Momma needs time to rest away from them. School starts and of course Tillie is an outsider. Her poetry gains the respect of her teacher but no one will play with her.This book reminded me of The Glass Castle, Jeanette Wall’s bestselling memoir of a childhood emotionally impoverished by an uncaring mother. Jane Urquhart’s novel The Stone Carvers also contains a scene of a child who was chained to a clothesline, a scene that some reviewers found far-fetched. I remember that when she read from it for OBOC in Cambridge, an elderly woman defended the veracity of the passage. She too had been chained in her room every day.Up From the Blue is a testimony to a child’s will to survive; and a plea for recognition of the family trauma around mental illness. I read it with tension in my chest – will Tillie, and her mother, survive? In that Shelf Awareness review, the author spoke of the response to her book. If there's a defining characteristic for Tillie, the narrator, it "is that she's wonderfully obstinate," Henderson observes. "She has an oomph--that thing that also makes her a handful--but I think it gives her courage, and she's determined to find humor and love and hope wherever she can. I wanted to use those strengths as I pulled that knot loose so that she wasn't stuck in time, and so she had a full range of choices for her future--not sugar-coated, but still hopeful." At bookstore events, when Susan reads a passage about Tillie's habit of biting classmates, she often notices a particular expression on the face of someone who "knows what it's like to walk home from school as the one who's seen as the problem. And they know what it's like to enter a house full of secrets and try to make sense of it without ever breathing a word."In the throes of delivering her first child, Tillie speaks across the years to her mother: “It wasn’t perfect, but I never needed perfect.” I hope that Up From the Blue reaches as wide an audience (including book clubs) as The Glass Castle and The Stone Carvers.

This is an exquisitely presented study of a very broken family, who are quite literally hiding their secrets behind closed doors. It is about children who are old enough to carry the shame, but who require the sanctity of their parents love regardless. It is about the slow breakdown of a woman, a marriage, and a family. This is beautifully written, and brilliantly constructed. Told from the perspective of Tilly, the seven year old daughter, Up From the Blue surprises thoughout - by showing sides of stories that you didn't expect. Changing my opinion of characters, and their motivations, and ensuring I never got too sure of myself in my judgement of the characters. This fabulous first novel succeeded in breaking my heart slowly, piece by piece. There are lines in this novel that will stay with me forever. A story about the unconditional love of children, and the damage that parents can inflict. And most poignant of all, the understanding that parents don't have to be perfect, just present! Susan Henderson will certainly be on the top of my wish list for future novels - can't wait for more!

Haunting and powerful. Just like the first book I read of Henderson’s, the main character is so deeply developed you feel like you could reach out and touch them. I was completely engaged throughout - only took me about 24 hours to read it. If you’re looking to meet a new favorite character that makes your face smile and your heart ache, I definitely recommend getting to know Tillie.

4.5 stars. This book starts off in the present (or 1991). We meet Tillie as she's unpacking her and her husbands new house. But oh shit, she goes into labor- 6 wks early! SHe's not ready and her husband is away on business. She stumbles to her neighbors and calls the only number she can remember- since everything is packed away- her father's.But she's not cool with her dad. And with many chapters to follow we find out why.The bulk of the story takes place when Tillie is 8. She lives with her mother and father and brother but something's off with her mom. She's a little disturbed, maybe tired but definitely not clearheaded enough to raise children. Her dad is a missile designer for the government. He's aware of his wife's issues and does what he can to keep it together but isn't what you would call an open person. Everything is hush hush. Eventually they move and he leaves Tillie with his secretary while he and Tillies mom and brother drive the long distance to his new job. when Tillie is eventually reunited with her parents she finds her mom is missing. it's a mystery.We then see more of the birth of the baby and then more about what happens when Tillie finds her mom. I liked the story, i love books that feature a child with family problems. (coming from a family with problems) but there was something missing to make it a *must read. It was good enough but I think it should have had a better ending. Something left me wanting but it only costed a .5 star.

I read Up From the Blue with a lump in my throat and a highlighter in my hand. The story, narrated by Tillie Harris, the daughter of an Air Force Officer, moves back and forth in time between 1975 and 1991. We mostly meet the family members through the viewpoint of eight-year-old Tillie, who’s trying to puzzle together the missing pieces in a military family where things are not what they seem. At times I thought I would go mad as my emotions swung wildly back and forth with everything that was happening with this family. I felt the rage, the loneliness, the questions, the silence, the grief, the unknown… I rooted for Tillie and her big brother Phil, and I questioned their dad, the colonel, a responsible authority figure who tries to bring order to chaos. And always, there’s the question, the driving force of the novel…what is going on with Tillie’s mother, Mara, a bohemian type who doesn’t fit the mold of the typical officer’s wife. As a former officer’s wife, I found myself rooting for Mara early on in the story, before I knew more. Just when we think we have things figured out, along comes another surprise. Throughout the narrative, I tried to put myself into the shoes of each of the characters. Although he was a secondary character, Mr. Woodson, Tillie’s teacher, proved to be one of my favorites. I looked forward to going to school with Tillie just so I could be in Mr. Woodson’s circle of light. Up From the Blue is one of those stories that will seep into your soul…even when you try to resist it.Susan Henderson is a brilliant storyteller and I look forward to her latest novel, The Flicker of Old Dreams.Kathleen M. Rodgers ~ Novelist

Don't read too many detailed reviews of this book until you have read the book. You don't want anything to spoil it for you.Reading this book was like devouring a wonderfully rich dessert. I wanted to slowly savor every bite, rolling it around on my tongue, but I could not slow down, I had to rush forward until the whole thing was consumed. The prose is flawless and rich; the characters true to life, and I could picture the house and the family perfectly. As Henderson described the life inside the military family of the 1970's I felt sure she must have been looking in the picture windows of the 1950's houses in my neighborhood of military families. She saw the strict father who must be saluted; the son who sits up very straight and says "yes sir". And there was the mother who gave up her dreams to follow her soldier husband around the country so he could advance in rank. Lastly, there was the little girl, confused and lonely, who had to learn to keep her emotions in little boxes on the shelf. And behind those tightly curtained windows, no one was allowed to know what went on there. I wish Susan Henderson great success with this book, it is an absolute prize of a novel.

This is a sobering look into a family ravaged by the far-reaching effects of mental illness. It is narrated by eight-year old Tillie, with glimpses into an adult Tillie's world. This is a haunting view of a child's world where there is no "safe harbor" as she and her brother navigate between the volatility of their mother and the rigid demands of their father. Susan Henderson has written a powerful debut novel.

An emotional book displaying how mental health splinters a family. Most of the narrative is set in the 70's when Tillie is 8 years old and grappling with why her mother (and family) is so different from others. Rather than seeking help the issue is hidden and kept as a secret from the outside world. This is definitely not a happy feel good book but rather a raw look at the feelings of a little girl who aches for her mothers love.

A book you can’t put down So much of this book resonated with me. The location bc I grew up in suburban Maryland not far from the cabin John bridge. The 70s references. The family dynamic wasn’t like mine but I had dysfunction too and throw in mental illness. The father daughter thing hit a cord. I really could not stop reading. I can’t tell you how I rooted for momma. This is the authors first novel...she knows how to spin a tale. Such a great read.

Besides creating a lovely and lyrical book with a satisfying arc, Susan Henderson has pulled off the nearly impossible task of writing a novel from the perspective of an 8-year-old girl. Tillie is a terrific character, and a believable one. I found this book after reading (and adoring) Henderson's new book, The Flicker of Old Dreams. Up From the Blue was actually published in 2010, and is such an impressive debut. Anxiously awaiting whatever she writes next.

A wonderful story of a dysfunctional family told from the perspective of 8 year old Tillie. Tillie sees her Mother as a person who loves her very much but lives under the thumb of her revered scientist husband. This novel covers the period of time when busing was a part of the country's culture, along with the prelude to war. The reader see's Tillie's mother as a hippie type person, but it takes a year for the child to realize that her mother is sick, probably with untreated bi-polar symptoms. Tillie's struggle to make a life, grow up and find happiness is a wonder! A great first novel.

Most interesting read. The characters so very vivid. The story heart-breaking and dark, yet I had to think of what we all go through in our childhoods, to survive and carve out our lives. I await this author's next book.