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If Only You People Could Follow Directions by Jessica Hendry Nelson T his memoir of linked essays explores notions of family and the tricky bal- ance for Jessica Hendry Nelson of honor- ing the family into which she was born (father, mother and brother Eric), while also steering clear of that dynamic in the family she later builds with partner Nick. About her attempt to leave her past behind after her father's death, Nelson says, "…all that sadness and mortality [trails] behind me like the train of a wedding gown I can't take off." Her entrenchment in that dynamic is perhaps more binding than marriage. A quick, skillful portrait of childhood with her father : "My father devised and demolished nearly a dozen businesses in half as many years… As kids, Eric and I would spend days in his office, stuffing envelopes with flyers for Nelson Brothers' Construction, or Nelson Computers, or Nelson Asbestos Removal, none of which lasted more than a few months. When he failed, our father would retreat to the basement with a bottle of vodka and some hobby glue, tenderly affixing miniature sails to the mast of another doomed ship." Nelson achieves so much in this one passage: the father's desire to provide; his manic ambition; the luring of his kids into his misguided fantasy. Finally, through the model ships her father constructed in their basement, Nelson gives us his vulnerable side—each glued-together ship another representation of ideas that do not sail. Similarly precise and efficient are the brush- strokes Nelson paints of her errant brother and her mother, whose maternal instincts will be her downfall. On a visit home from a halfway house, Eric is sober, but complains of insomnia, loneli- ness and depression. His mother takes him to a psychiatrist, where he asks for Ativan and Lexapro, telling the doctor that this combo works for his mother and sister—"the family cure." That night, the mother wakes to her son in the hallway, lost, loaded and confused, "his bottle of Ativan almost empty." "'I can't find the cherry on my cigarette.' He stands there stooped, a lit cigarette dan- gling from his fingers, and she sees that every- thing has gone awry, suddenly and again. She sits him on the sofa and says, 'I'm making eggs.'" Nelson's words, "suddenly and again," articulate both the surprise and the repeti- tion of life with an addict—the cycle from clean to relapsed, predictable and relentless. Defenseless in the face of love for a child, this mother never loses that instinct to feed, the poignant belief in a pan of eggs. Towards the end of the memoir, we know Nelson will save herself, through her intellect and her writing, but also by choosing the kind of man—not like her father nor her brother—who will stand by her when she's enmeshed in family tragedy or successfully breaking away from it. Nick is like a road sign saying: This Way. "Nick and I are searching on the internet for a place to rent in Vermont… photos of mountain- side bungalows and converted barns. Everything broken charms me…the vaulted ceilings with cracked beams, the wide wooden siding gone soft with age. Nick scoffs at the way I romanticize the dilapidated and scans through the fine print for utilities and maintenance costs. I will forgive a lack of indoor plumbing if the view is right. He won't go near a place with oil heat." 84 C A R M E L M A G A Z I N E • S P R I N G / S U M M E R 2 0 1 7 IN REVIEW B Y M E L A N I E B I S H O P IN REVIEW in the hallway, lost, loaded and confused, "his bottle of Ativan almost empty." gling from his fingers, and she sees that every- thing has gone awry, suddenly and again. making eggs.'" articulate both the surprise and the repeti- tion of life with an addict—the cycle from clean to relapsed, predictable and relentless. this mother never loses that instinct to feed, know Nelson will save herself, through her intellect and her writing, but also by choosing the kind of man—not like her in the hallway, lost, loaded and confused, "his bottle of Ativan almost empty." gling from his fingers, and she sees that every- thing has gone awry, suddenly and again. making eggs.'" articulate both the surprise and the repeti- tion of life with an addict—the cycle from clean to relapsed, predictable and relentless. this mother never loses that instinct to feed, know Nelson will save herself, through her intellect and her writing, but also by choosing the kind of man—not like her constructed in their basement, Nelson gives us constructed in their basement, Nelson gives us father nor her brother—who will stand Moving Beyond Broken, Women's Voices and Stories Everywhere