Review- of Donna Lethal’s book ” Milk Of Amnesia”

I forgot where I put Donna Lethal’s book.  It’s somewhere in this mess of an apartment. (I just moved my Office into my apartment, and my Office is filled with books to sell on Amazon) and who knows where my luggage is from that trip a month ago…. I may not know where my luggage is, or Donna’s book but it is time to write about “Milk Of Amnesia.” 

I read it on a bumpy plane ride from L.A. to New York… Some people were screaming by the time we landed in New York fearing we would crash, and I was laughing “with” Donna’s tragic rollercoaster childhood memoir.

We are all  allowed to laugh “with” Donna’s book, no matter how sad things got. It is big part of the book: Laugh at the absurdities and tragedies  of your life and you have a chance of becoming a happy person.That is a big part of her theme.

Let me put it another way: The shit that happens to you in your childhood, can help prepare you for the tragedies that are going to happen throughout life and if you can be smart enough, witty enough, mature enough, and stupid enough, you can have fun with just about anything that happens to you.

 

Donna is talking to you in person in her book. It is as if she is in the room, telling you stories of her life. Our lives are made up of the things that happen to us, and despite the “amnesia” in the title, Donna recounts nuggets of family stories which shaped her life.

 

Basic Foundation of D0nna Lethal’s life is enough for you to pick up the book and start reading: Her mom was a former Nun, and her Dad was a character,(everybody know what I mean by a “character?”):

To me a character is someone who picks up the newspaper, reads the headlines and personally knows everybody who was picked up and arrested in the daily blotter, and he has something funny  to say about everyone and everything as well. That is Donna’s Dad.Sometimes, he might have been reading about himself as well.

 

Is that not enough for you? Her mom was a former Nun? What makes a Nun hook up with a “character?” You’ll have to read the book.

 

How does she survive being a Punk in the seventies  who likes to hang out in cemeteries in Lowell , Massachusetts  with other “outsiders?” 

You’ll have to read the book.

 

Why is the book called milk of Amnesia? She doesn’t say exactly, but I have a theory. As a youngster she took drugs which gave her an ulcer. I’m sure milk of magnesia became part of her diet. She was probably trying to forget certain harsh realities of her life,  and that’s where the amnesia comes in.

 

Well the good news is “Milk Of Magnesia,  is filled with memories of her difficult past and is willing to tell us all about it now. .

 

.As I read the book on the plane, and listened to passengers scream periodically because they feared dying, I occassionally screamed out to, remembering some painful memory that happened in my life  that now I could laugh about because Donna made me remember it and made it o.k. to look at (identification).  I really just screamed  just to add to the fun of my   fellow passengers  misery  and for my own cathartic experience of reading the book . (They could all go home and tell how the big fuzzy man screamed like a little girl.)

 

I am here today for selfish reasons. I want you to buy the book, read the book and encourage Donna to continue writing about her life. I can’t wait to be on a plane that might crash again with a new book by her. If the plane does crash, I’ll only be sad that I wasn’t able to write a review about it…

 

AS A FINAL NOTE:

 

As the plane came to less than a  perfect landing, people started applauding the Pilot.  I stood up and applauded Donna Lethal’s new book “Milk of Magnesia. ” I will ride her bumpy stories always and you should too.