The Kiss
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List Price: $11.00
Our Price: $8.80
Your Save: $ 2.20 ( 20% )
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Manufacturer: Harper Perennial
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Average Customer Rating:  
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Binding: Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 813.54
EAN: 9780007659043
ISBN: 0007659040
Label: Harper Perennial
Manufacturer: Harper Perennial
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 224
Publication Date: 1998-06-01
Publisher: Harper Perennial
Release Date: 1998-06-01
Studio: Harper Perennial
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Editorial Reviews:
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We meet at airports. We meet in cities where we've never been before. We meet where no one will recognize us. A "man of God" is how someone described my father to me. I don 't remember who. Not my mother. I'm young enough that I take the words to mean he has magical properties and that he is good, better than other people. With his hand under my chin, my father draws my face toward his own. He touches his lips to mine. I stiffen. I am frightened by the kiss. I know it wrong, and its wrongness is what lets me know, too, that it is a secret. We meet at airport. We meet in cities where we've never been before. We meet where no one will recognize us.A "man of God" is how someone described my father to me. I don 't remember who. Not my mother. I'm young enough that I take the words to mean he has magical properties and that he is good, better than other people.With his hand under my chin, my father draws my face toward his own. He touches his lips to mine. I stiffen. I am frightened by the kiss. I know it wrong, and its wrongness is what lets me know, too, that it is a secret.
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Spotlight customer reviews:
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Customer Rating:
Summary: I picked this memoir up for at least the 2nd time..
Comment: I am glad I picked this memoir up again..after at least the second time. Parts of it were poetic and moving, and parts of it were very difficult to read. I am going to get a hold of "The Mother Knot" as soon as possible. It also is a memoir by Kathryn Harrison. After exploring (using Amazon's) search inside feature I found that I had read one of her other memoirs..titled "Seeking Rapture" I will review that one soon.
Customer Rating:
Summary: A Brave Confession
Comment: Kathryn Harrison shows compelling bravery in her memoir, The Kiss. She confides in the reader on the dark and disturbing subject matter of her incest relationship with her father. She takes us on a journey through a complex past and family life. When she was young her father was an absent mystery and she is not shy to explain that this made him an object of extreme interest to her. I love the honesty behind her writing and the extreme vulnerability she shows to the reader. She admits, "I want to be held too much to stay away" (87). The abrupt transitions between scenes from her seemingly normal everyday life and the secret she lives with her father is extremely effective in captivating the reader's attention. The pages will keep turning as she continues to be more and more affected by the haunting secret she keeps. Although she describes her encounters with her father in graphic detail, it is impossible for the reader to be disgusted. There is an ongoing feeling of sympathy for Harrison as she beautifully explains her desperate longing for love and a sense of belonging. "I'm afraid that whatever he wants, I will give him," (107) she discloses. The memoir continues to take the reader deeper and deeper to new levels of complexity especially in regards to Harrison's struggling relationship with her mother. So many knots are presented in this book that the reader cannot help but want to continue to read on and try and untie them. Every sentence in packed with emotion and despite coming from an obviously broken girl, the voice is powerful and strong. I definitely recommend Kathryn Harrisons memoir to anyone who appreciates good writing and a profound story.
Customer Rating:
Summary: The Kiss: Beauty of darkness.
Comment: "The Kiss", by Kathryn Harrison, is a spectacular memoir, and I highly recommend anyone to read it. The
book focuses on the incestuous relationship between Kathryn Harrison and her father, who re-enters her life
during her teen years, after not having seen her for several years.
When telling her story, Harrison writes in the present tense. This is a very interesting technique, because it
makes the reader feel as if she is actually speaking the story out loud, telling it directly to her audience.
Harrison portrays this literary talent when she writes, "After months of letters and calls, as many as three of
each in a day, all promising devotion, all asking for mine, my father has prepared me for what he
requests" (107). Harrison may as well be having a conversation with me when she writes this sentence, it
sounds so real and legitimate!
Aside from the use of wonderful literary techniques, Harrison manages to take incest, a dark and "hush-
hushed" topic, and manages to convey it as a beautiful, loving, subject, "'I love you,' my father says. `I need
you.' `I need you, too,' I whisper." If I had read this passage, unaware of the actual content of "The Kiss", I
would never know it regarded incest, yet, two people who love each other. Harrison's story enabled me to see
the true beauty of her words, and to not be so quick to undermine the love of two people.
Read this book. I guarantee you will see the beauty pertained in darkness.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Wow!
Comment: Oh, the webs we weave! Kathryn Harrison is one of the best writers around and I've read several of her books. Although this one may be dark, and it's about incest, it is an incredible journey of longing and need that takes a young woman to the very bottom of herself.
Customer Rating:
Summary: The Darkest Kiss
Comment: The most amazing thing about this nonfiction book, "The Kiss" by Kathryn Harrison, is how such a dark and tragic subject is expressed so beautifully. For those of you not familiar with this book (it came out in 1997), it centers on Harrison's own relationship with her father, a man who was absent throughout her childhood only to return again when she was in her early 20s.
Harrison is thrilled when her father re-enters her life because her mother has largely spent Harrison's life ignoring her, relying on her own parents (Harrison's grandparents) to raise her. The whole thing takes a startling, disturbing turn when one day, at the airport, when he is leaving, Harrison's father turns to kiss her goodbye and gives her "the kiss" a lover would, not a father.
One has to admire Harrison's bravery in coming forward with her own dark past, which explores not only the taboo relationship with her father (which she eventually ends), but also the betrayal of her own mother, whose approval she has always needed but never realized. The honesty of such seduction and self-destruction is unlike anything I've ever read before. It's tough material to take, and several times, I found myself having to put the book aside, to turn away from such a disturbing story.
One of Harrison's reviewers wrote, "Every sentence strikes and burns and scars...," and I find this a fitting description of the power of her writing in this book. What is at the essence of this book, and why would anyone want to spend time reading about something so unimaginable, so awful? I think that the value in this story lies not in its ability to shock, but in its sad uncovering of the desperation for parental love and approval that can lead to such self-destruction. Strangely enough, love is at the heart of this memoir--the love for one's parents that is returned only with abuse. It's not an easy reading journey to take, but it is a worthy one.
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