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Martha Dudman is a
single parent raising two children. She never had an easy relationship with her daughter,
Augusta, but it became unmanageable when her daughter turned 13.
More
than standard teenage rebellion, Augusta would be gone for days at a time, and she
refused to go to school. Any attempts to stop her self-destructive behavior were met
with hysterics and more absences.
Augusta, Gone: A True Story is
Dudman’s honest and sometimes brutal point of view about trying to raise an imperfect
child; she holds nothing back while telling the story.
Luckily, Martha
had the resources to get help. This book is of little use to parents who cannot afford
to shell out thousands of dollars for alternative schools and wilderness camps. And,
while the she admits that most of her efforts to save her daughter were futile, Martha
still claims success to the point of sounding like a martyr.
At the end
of the book, the reader is left wondering if Augusta will be all right or not; it’s
really too early to tell.
This is another book about how tough it is to be
a parent, along with some of the things you can do (if you're wealthy) to pass the buck
for a few years; let someone else worry about your kids for a while, or at least until
they reach legal age.
I can recommend Augusta, Gone: A True Story
to someone (like me) who enjoys reading memoirs—but not to someone who's searching for
assistance in dealing with their unruly child.
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