Celebrities who reveal that their parents abused them shouldn't be criticized, states TV actress Somers, who chronicled her own unhappy childhood in Keeping Secrets . If public figures had been more open in the past, she writes, ``Maybe I wouldn't have grown up thinking I was the only girl in America with a father like mine.'' Here she assembles a star-studded list of memoirs that will satisfy the nosy and tug at the heart strings too. Gary Crosby, Patti (Reagan) Davis, Desi Arnaz Jr., Angie Dickinson, B. J. Thomas, Cindy Williams and other victims of physical, emotional or sexual abuse relate their ordeals and eloquently reach out to readers suffering the same problems. Gary Crosby, whose father Bing savagely beat (and made jokes about) his backside, conveys the humor and determination needed to survive. Writing of her father, the former president, Patti Davis confesses, ``I never got to know the man any better than a waiter would.'' Though the stories are poignant, reading them is, as Somers notes in her commentary, uplifting. Literary Guild and Doubleday Book Club alternates. ( Sept. )
Television actress Somers, currently seen on ABC's Step by Step , offers this compilation of first-person accounts of childhood abuse as experienced by 22 adults. Subjects include celebrities, children of celebrities, and Somers herself. While these brief recollections emphasize survival and healing, they are not pretty. In fact, some of the stories, particularly those involving sexual abuse, are graphic and disturbing. Somers's purpose is to provide catharsis and encourage honest assessment of the past by readers who have had similar experiences. Also included are a foreword by Timmen L. Cermak, M.D., author of A Time To Heal: The Road to Recovery for Adult Children of Alcoholics ( LJ 4/1/88); current abuse statistics; and a resource list. This title is likely to generate interest because of Somers's recent autobiography, Keeping Secrets (Warner, 1988), and a made-for-TV movie based on her childhood. Appropriate for self-help and recovery collections. Previewed in Prepub Alert, LJ 6/15/92; Literary Guild and Doubleday Book Club alternate.-- Linda S. Greene, Chicago P.L.
When celebrities describe the abuse they experienced as children, it seems clear that some similarly abused adults are encouraged to recognize and confront the secrets of their own early years. It seems equally clear that at least some of the avid fans of various forms of celebrity confessional are motivated by prurient curiosity rather than by empathy or compassion. Entertainer Suzanne Somers appealed effectively to this mixed audience with her autobiography, "Keeping Secrets" (Warner Books, 1988); "Wednesday's Children" ("Wednesday's child is full of woe") collects brief reminiscences of emotional, physical, or sexual abuse from just under two dozen adults, many of them well known (Angie Dickinson; Patti Davis; Desi Arnaz, Jr.; Dee Wallace Stone; Cindy Williams; Gary Crosby; Lenny Bruce's mother, Sally Marr; former Dallas Cowboy "Hollywood" Henderson; "And the Band Played On" author Randy Shilts; singer B. J. Thomas). In a foreword, Timmen L. Cermak, M.D., addresses the concern that stories like these are "anecdotal and exhibitionistic," arguing that the "universal human impulse is to deny abuse, whether you perpetrated it or suffered it. But . . . emotional freedom depends upon breaking the bonds of silence." Somers' collection allows some celebrities, a bookkeeper, and a gynecologist, as well as several therapists, to break those bonds.
Somers continues the campaign against child abuse that she began with her forceful autobiography, Keeping Secrets (1987). Here, the popular comedienne-with-a-cause has persuaded 22 fellow victims to donate "qualifications" about their abuse- experience; of the 22, most are celebrities ("I believe...Americans feel more comfortable addressing personal problems of their own once celebrities they admire go public," argues Somers—who's bestowed her own high-profile name on the Palm Springs-based Suzanne Somers Institute, for families victimized by addiction). Somers divides the contributions according to type of abuse: "emotional" (Angie Dickinson, Cindy Williams, Patti Davis, et al.); "physical" (Randy Shilts, Gary Crosby, et al.); "sexual" (B.J. Thomas, Traci Lords, et al.). Much of this material shocks ("from the time I was ten years old until I was thirteen I was sexually abused by my mother's third husband, Lex Barker," writes Cheryl Crane. "After the first assault, Lex said to me, `You know what happens to little girls who tell? They get sent away to juvenile hall and never see their parents again' "). Some of it intrigues as character-study (Traci Lords links her teenage career as a porn star to an alcoholic dad; Richard Berendzen, the American Univ. president canned for making indecent phone calls, links those calls to his having been sexually abused by a woman at age 11). And nearly all of it proves affecting, as these men and women explain their growth from mea culpa to J'accuse and, finally, into personal responsibility. A curious but irresistible mix of soulful sincerity and glitter-sleaze that could sell through the roof.
