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Associated Press
a day ago
- Entertainment
- Associated Press
Book Review: 'The Tilting House' is a novel about coming of age in Communist Cuba
Yuri is a 16-year-old orphan who lives simply with her religious aunt in a big, old house in Communist Cuba in the years after the fall of the Berlin Wall. Yuri's parents had named her after the Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gargarin, hoping that one day she would grow up to be a famous female astronaut. Yuri now has vague hopes of being accepted into the Lenin school, Cuba's prestigious preparatory. Yuri and her Aunt Ruth's quiet lives are suddenly turned upside down when an unexpected visitor from 'la Yuma' — slang for the United States — shows up at their Havana home with a camera swinging from her neck and announcing she is family. Ruth later tells Yuri that 34-year-old Mariela is her daughter, and that when Mariela was an infant she sent her to live with a family in the United States through Operation Pedro Pan, a U.S. government program in which thousands of unaccompanied children were sent from Cuba to Miami in the early 1960s. 'The Tilting House,' by Miami-based writer Ivonne Lamazares, is an affecting and sometimes amusing coming-of-age novel set in a country that few have had the opportunity to visit, despite its proximity to the U.S. It's a study of hidden family secrets, the unhealed wound of losing a mother and the quest for home. Lamazares, who was born in Havana, knows her homeland well, and her book is rife with description and historic detail that only someone with first-hand knowledge could provide. Lamazares left Cuba for the United States in 1989 during a period of shortages and deprivation known as 'The Special Period in Time of Peace.' Her first novel, 'The Sugar Island,' also set in Cuba, was translated into seven languages. In 'The Tilting House,' Yuri is quickly pulled into Mariela's chaotic world and her absurd art projects, which include a tragicomic funeral for Ruth's dead dog, Lucho, in a public park using highly illegal homemade fireworks. Ruth, already viewed as suspect by the government as a member of the small Jehovah's Witnesses group, is arrested and sent to jail on unexplained charges. Mariela later tells Yuri that they aren't cousins, but sisters, and that their now-dead mother gave birth to her as a teenager. Mariela insists that their Aunt Ruth 'kidnapped' her and sent her to live in the U.S., where she was raised on a farm in Nebraska. More harebrained projects follow, and the family's tilting house finally tumbles after neighbors and acquaintances slowly chip away at the building to repurpose many of the structure's materials. Yuri later emigrates to the U.S., where she studies and starts a career that allows her to make a return visit to the island. On that trip her past becomes clearer, and she reaches something approaching closure and forgiveness. ___ AP book reviews:
Yahoo
2 days ago
- Yahoo
"It All Made More Sense To Me Once I Grew Up": 29 Shocking Family Secrets People Discovered As Adults That Will Leave You Reeling
Recently, we wrote about family secrets people discovered, and members of the BuzzFeed Community had some of their own secrets to share. Here's what they had to get off their chests.* *Along with more answers from the original Reddit thread. 1."That the 'holiday' I had at my aunt's house for a month, where my mum would call me a lot of days crying, was actually me being kidnapped and taken to a secluded town in the middle of nowhere (in rural Australia where it was four hours to the closest town). My mum didn't want to call the police at first because she was close to her sister and believed she was being manipulated by another family member (who had successfully kidnapped my brother many years ago). But she eventually called the police, and I was brought back. I had a feeling something was off with the way my mum would talk on the phone ... but she didn't want to scare me at the time. I didn't find out for sure until a few years later." —u/Consistent_Type4270 2."I was told my father was arrested and sent to prison for 15 years for being a part of a boiler room fraud scheme in the late '80s and that he was charged under RICO for communications fraud and theft on A LOT of counts. I went to visit him a few times, and he would send cards on holidays and my birthday. ... I remember him using a cane the first time I saw him in prison, and he said he 'got hurt.' My 4-year-old self thought this made sense. After a year or so, he stopped writing, and I stopped visiting." "I figured he didn't have our new address after a recent move. I finally received a call from him during my senior year of high school to reconnect. I blew him off and never really gave it a second thought. Then, I became a father a decade or so later, and I felt horrible for pushing away his last effort, so I attempted to reconnect. Turns out he'd passed. But in the process of looking him up, I came across his court records, and the truth was revealed. Turns out he was released on probation EVERY time for his multiple felonies. After violating his probation a third time via a DUI that resulted in a major bodily injury (that explains the cane), he was sentenced to five years. He served just under four. He waited 10+ years to call. I was in his local newspaper for some high school athletic achievements, and that is what reminded him I existed. Some added background: he was a Vietnam war vet who came back with a Vietnamese wife; they had two sons together, and about ten years into the marriage, he started an affair with my mother. He told his primary family he was working out of town three days a week but was living across town with my mother. Eventually, I was conceived. My mother was addicted to painkillers, and after my birth, I was removed from her care. I was lucky to have a couple ready to foster me, but my father fought it because he would owe child support. So, I got to live the incredible experience of being an affair partner's child at his wife's house and having no clue why everyone in the house hated me. I changed my last name to my adopted family. I hope his grave is unmarked and covered by a pig farm." —u/superduper Related: 3."My aunt Rosa was the only sister not living in the US. She had a child my mom's age but no husband and was never referred to as widowed. I always suspected something dark kept her in Mexico because the subject would get changed when someone brought it up. Back in 2009, I was visiting her and asked her why she'd never moved here. Turns out she did in the '50s, but her husband was an abusive drunk. He hit her son (my cousin) when he was three and broke his nose. That was the final straw. My aunt waited for him to go to sleep, packed her bags, loaded her car, cut his throat, and ran back to Mexico." —u/CordCarillo 4."For me, it was the lawsuit against my grandpa for groping my cousin. She was 15. I was 8. My parents left me alone with him after this, even though my cousin swears it happened. I didn't know the truth till I found my estranged cousin when I was 18, and my parents had the audacity to tell me that she was toxic." —u/Lexiwolf333 5."I only discovered a few years ago that the commune my parents were in in the 1970s was more like a sex cult than a commune. There was one leader, and everyone gave all their money to him; he set all the rules and made very arbitrary decisions. Like making my parents marry even though, as my mom said (which sort of traumatized 14-year-old me), 'we weren't even sleeping together that week!' Some seriously weird shit went down. It wasn't a commune; it was a cult. I asked my mom bluntly about it a few years ago, and she agreed." —u/Mapper9 6."My great-grandmother and her family were sex workers. Her mother and aunt ran a 'boarding house' for 'professional women' and the men they would 'entertain.' They also were part of a team smuggling liquor across the border into the US during prohibition. I had guessed at some point that the 'boarding house' was actually a brothel, which was confirmed to me once I was older." "I always thought it was a kind of cool story full of drama and intrigue, but what I hadn't realized in my youth was that my great-grandmother likely faced a lot of sexual and emotional abuse, causing trauma that she then passed on by being a pretty abusive wife and mother. My grandfather was an amazing man who was able to break the cycle with help from my grandmother and her side of the family, but his sisters weren't so lucky, and to this day, the family dynamics on their part are extremely toxic. It all made more sense to me once I grew up." —u/Fllyder 7."My mum passed away never knowing that it was my sibling who'd turned her in to local authorities after a decade on the run. She ended up only serving nine months of a 22-year sentence because she'd been living a quiet life during that time. This meant we could leave an abusive household to move in with her once she was out. Living with her was only mildly better in the end, but my sibling's actions might have saved our lives. I found out after I was married and moved out of state. I'd thought it was suspicious [that she was arrested] so soon after we'd discovered where she was living, but outright denial meant I gave up wondering as a teen." —u/BigRedButler85 8."I grew up with a single mother and no contact with relatives. I was told nothing about why it was only my brother, myself, and whatever random man my mother was involved with at the time. We moved constantly, and she seemed to have no friends either. If I asked any questions about why we didn't have relatives or why we were moving again, I would get frozen out, and she would not speak to me or look at me for months at a time, so I learned to stop asking. When I moved out at 16, I started trying to look for anything in libraries that might help me find out what the real story was about any family I might have." "This was long before DNA or the internet, and it was very hard even to get a copy of my birth certificate, which I finally did. Cut to much later in life when I had my DNA done on one of those sites and found some relatives. The whole story came out that my Mom was about to lose custody of me and my younger brother for abuse when she and my father got divorced (we were just toddlers, and I remembered nothing about it). She decided rather than lose custody, she would pay my father back for leaving her and just disappear with us. That was why we constantly moved and didn't seem to have relatives. She always used whatever boyfriend's last name she had hooked up with when registering us for school, and when the schools couldn't track down our records from the last school we had been in, we would disappear and move again. Apparently, my father had tried to find us many times, but it was fairly easy to disappear back then. I found out so much more, but all the truth came out, and buried memories came back to me. I am 67 now and still get flashbacks to suddenly understanding now some strange thing that happened back then. I never know what to say when people ask why I don't have any relatives." —Anonymous 9."My siblings and I could never figure out when we'd get together with my mom's family why my one aunt was always resentful about my other aunt who had a child out of wedlock. After about fifty years, we finally found out with the passing of my mom. My resentful aunt had a child and was forced to give it up. The reason she had to give up the baby was because she became pregnant by my father — he, my mom, grandparents, and aunt kept it all secret. My brother and I were in between the other baby. Sadly, we connected with the brother and were in the process of meeting when he died of a heart attack. It is so weird that my mom forgave everyone and acted like nothing was ever wrong. I feel so sorry for my mom, who has lived with this for so long. Even on her deathbed, she kept the secret." —Anonymous Related: 10."My sister has a different dad. That one just took thinking twice about some math that they'd been normalizing to us since we were tiny. We just didn't think about it! Yeah, she's the only brunette in a family of blondes, but that's my sister! If anyone asks, my mom fell pregnant at 16, a few months before meeting my 23-year-old father. We're unsure if our dad knew, but he's not the kind of magnanimous benefactor who would keep a kid that's not his. I respect my mother's decision because that kept my sister glued to our side during custody battles, the loss of our mom, secured a childhood for my sister under heinous circumstances." —u/stickandtired 11."I didn't know my dad for close to 40 years. Folks would tell me very little about him, and if I asked for any more details, I was always told to 'let sleeping dogs lie.' At one point, I even asked if he knew where we lived, and they said if he did know, 'we'd move again.' After my grandmother died, I got more information and was able to find my dad, except he had died 15 years before. His family was certainly shocked to learn about me. My dad's family told me his parents would have loved me, especially my Abuelo, with whom I share a birthday ... I've never forgiven my mom for this." —danetee_sliger 12."I had a great uncle on my mom's side who I just loved. He and his wife (they had no children) lived in the US (my family is Canadian), but they'd come to visit often. He'd spend most of their visits playing with me, telling me stories of where he'd traveled and bedtime stories from different countries from memory. My great-uncle died suddenly when I was eight. I was always told it was a heart attack. His wife, who was European, moved back to Europe but kept in touch with my grandparents. Fast forward a couple of decades, and my mom inherited my great-uncle's personal papers from her father (my great-uncle's brother). It turns out my great-uncle joined US Intelligence in the 1940s and was working for the CIA on an 'assignment' when he died. No idea if his wife knew." —Anonymous 13."I found out that my great-grandmother was a mail-order bride. Growing up, when my dad would tell me stories about her, he just said that she was 'essentially a mail-order bride.' I took that to mean that maybe she found a guy through a pen pal or something. Nope! I found out later she went through a company that connected mail-order brides to single men. Unfortunately, both her husbands were assholes. It sounded really ugly." —hiddencake55 14."My mother wasn't my grandfather's child. She didn't find out until I shared my 23andMe results with her. If she weren't an affair baby, I'd have been about 1/4 Italian. Instead, I'm 1/4 Latvian and absolutely 0% Italian. Grandma just so happened to be 'very good friends' with a Latvian man who had been one of her patients. What really sucked was when my mom told one of my aunts, she found out that not only did everyone else know, but they'd agreed not to tell my mother for going on 60 years now." —u/TheTurboDiesel Related: 15."I was in a cult. I didn't know the word for it [at the time], but I would constantly sit in church and just wonder if it was all made up by someone who enjoyed controlling other people. After some research (that I was told never to do!), my suspicions were confirmed." "It's a huge relief because I'm gay, and that wasn't allowed." —nomorepieohmy grandmother started getting dementia about 10 years ago, [and we found out that] neither of my mother's siblings are my grandfather's children. She had a 15-year affair, and my 'oops baby' mother is his only legitimate child. Granny also offed that same grandfather. There's no way to prove it, though, and at this point, it was over 20 years ago. He fell out of bed and broke his hip, and instead of calling for help, she unplugged all the phones and left him on the floor for three days. She 'found' him when the neighbor came by to take him fishing or something, but by that point, he was delirious and half unconscious. He died a couple of days later from a massive stroke." "When I was an adult, my mother had drunk a few glasses (she never drinks) and told me that her mother hated him because he was in the military, and they had to move away from her affair partner for several years. She took it out on my mother until my grandfather found out, and then she started taking it out on him." —u/erratic_bonsai 17."My now-dead father-in-law had multiple affairs during his marriage to my mother-in-law. It was a known family secret that all the men had second and even third families. My husband said his dad never had a second family, but there are photos of 'extended cousins' who look eerily like my husband and his brothers." —Anonymous 18."My grandmother (dad's mother) lied to my dad and his sister for decades about who their real fathers were. They believed their father had died when my dad was in his twenties and my aunt was in her teens — until 23andMe tests came back and showed they were only HALF siblings. My dad was rightfully angry and confronted my grandmother about it. It turns out the man she was married to was sterile, and her doctor (back in the '50s and '60s) told her if she wanted kids, she'd need to 'seek other options.' So she did — with her then-boss and another random man. She refuses to apologize to my dad and aunt for lying to them, even after her husband's death ages ago." "To make it even worse, my dad discovered his actual father was still alive but suffering from terrible dementia at nearly 100 years old; my dad made the difficult choice not to pursue a relationship with him so as not to further confuse him in his last years. So heartbreaking. Ironically, my dad used to tease my aunt about her not being his 'real' sister — if only he knew!" —Anonymous 19."My cousin who was super ill actually had a sickness that was preventable with medicine. ... [He] died because the woman my uncle married was a religious nut. ... [This was] confirmed later when I was an adult. I remember getting told off as a kid because I asked, 'Isn't there medicine for what he has?'" —u/Mental-Book-1555 20."My dad told me this full story on a camping trip recently. ... Basically, when my grandma and grandpa were still married and had my dad's older sister, my grandpa was very, very religious, but my grandma wasn't as invested. I'm not sure whether it was a splinter group of their church or an entirely different thing, but my grandpa eventually joined this hyper-religious, cult-like group (my dad just referred to it as a flat-out cult), which was led by a woman about the same age as my grandma and grandpa. My grandma knew this group was sketchy af, but this was the early '70s, so she felt like she had to go along with my grandpa's devotion to the group. The group was meeting one night at my grandma and grandpa's house, and somehow, possibly over the course of just that night, or maybe it had been ongoing, the leader convinced my grandpa to kill, or at least attack, my grandma, who at that time was pregnant with my dad." "So my grandpa went with it. He chased her out of the house with a kitchen knife, all in front of my aunt, who was luckily too young to remember any of this. Needless to say, that was the end of the marriage and the end of my horrible person of a grandpa being involved in his kids' lives." —u/Many-Mongoose-3463 21."When I was a kid, my parents were eager to send me upstairs to bed because they were hiding lots of things they didn't want me and others to know about. Mom drank too much. Dad was in the closet and in a long-term relationship with the man who lived in our house with us — and Dad's partner actually owned the house!" —u/Hedgehog-Plane Related: 22."My uncle was the local drug dealer. ... When I hit 14, he mentioned to me at a family event that if I ever wanted to experiment, I just had to talk to him. He would give me reasonable access. If he found out that I was using other stuff, he'd tell my parents. Never paid for drugs all through high school, and when he came to pick me up in Year 9 one time, I got so many shocked looks." —u/Lozzanger 23."That my aunt did not die of an asthma attack in her sleep but took her own life. She had been very depressed. As an adult, they admitted she purposely overdosed. As a child with asthma, I wish they had just told me the truth because before I started to suspect it was a lie, I was terrified that I was going to die too." —u/Cabbage-floss 24."I grew up in a small, rural community where everyone knew each other, especially if they had kids the same age. My parents were close friends with all of my friends' parents and would spend nights over at their houses and stuff. It turns out they were all doing drugs and swinging." —[deleted] 25."One of my aunts had a bad relationship with my grandpa. Grandpa was an asshole, so it wasn't hard to believe, but she never came around family events, and it was just odd. ... It turns out that my aunt was in charge of watching her infant sister when she was 10-11 years old; the infant sister died on 'her watch,' and grandpa blamed her for it. I first heard this story when I was 18, about a year after Grandpa died. I knew something fucked up had happened, but I didn't think it was that bad." —u/MaleficentAvocado1 26."My dad died of a heart attack. His heart was bad, but he was also a functional cocaine user. ... He made good money, provided for his family, and had nice cars — it was somewhat unexpected. My sister saw on his death certificate and showed me at about 28 years old that cocaine was in his system when he died, and they found the baggie in the bathroom. His artery was already blocked 95%, and he'd had chest pains those few days and set an appointment for Monday with doctors. The story was he was peeing in the bathroom and took a puff of his cigarette, and then that blocked his heart to 100%, so I guess I somehow figured plaque dislodged from one place in the artery to that final 95% place with the puff of that cigarette." "In reality, that last cocaine hit on Saturday constricted the artery one last time and closed it. If he hadn't done it, he'd probably have been rushed into emergency surgery and had a stent placed that Monday and be alive today. My mom finally admitted that, yes, he did it consistently. He was a truck driver, so it energized him too to do his job better, and eventually, truck driving worsened his dependency on the drug. He had gotten a new job as a trainer right before dying and would have regular 9-5 hours; relocation was required so we'd be away from the negative influences. He was going to start getting help to quit fully and had heard about a new drug that helps with addiction." —u/Davina_Lexington 27."That my dad is not my bio dad, and my mom was an unwed teen mom for the first year of my life. Before I get into it, my mom did what she had to do to get out of a tough situation, and I love my dad. He has never treated me differently than my siblings and told me after all this came out that I am his daughter regardless." "I suspected it when I was younger because I didn't look like my dad, and my sister looked a lot different than me, enough that kids in school did not know we were related. I was told that I just heavily take after my mom's side of the family. I found out when my suspected bio dad reached out to to then find out that I am also not related to him either after taking an ancestry test. I looked a lot like him, too, but apparently, my mom had a type (blonde hair, blue eyes, tall type). My bio dad does not know I exist, but I matched DNA to his mother and found him through that. My mom and he broke up before she knew she was pregnant and jumped into a new relationship almost immediately, so she thought I was related to the person who reached out initially. Now, I don't know if I should try to contact him or not." —u/IllustriousExit5820 28."My grandmother knew her second husband was sexually assaulting my mother as a child and did nothing until it came out to the rest of the world, too. Mom confirmed she told my grandma after the first or second time it happened, at seven years old. And this part hasn't been confirmed, but I believe there's enough evidence with how my grandmother talks about him that she never stopped loving him and only divorced him because it's what was expected of her. I don't talk to her anymore." —u/emmakane418 finally..."[I found out] that two of my dad's cousins had a kid [together]. No shit." —u/Virtual-Prize-7967 Also in Internet Finds: Also in Internet Finds: Also in Internet Finds: Solve the daily Crossword
Irish Times
4 days ago
- Irish Times
Behind the ‘perfect family': How ‘great fear' stopped Dublin sisters revealing abuse by brothers
To the outside world, they must have looked like 'the perfect family', says Paula Fay, who grew up as Paula Brennan in Rathfarnham , south Dublin. 'We would have been regarded as fairly affluent; we went to Mass every Sunday as a family, all dressed to the nines,' she recalls. 'My mother would say to us: 'Anything that goes on in this house is to stay within the four walls of this house' and 'woe betide anyone who tells'.' Behind closed doors, the Brennans' family life was very far from perfect. READ MORE When then 12-year-old Catherine Brennan, now Catherine Wrightstone, disclosed in 1984 she was being sexually abused by her older brother Richard, her parents reacted with disbelief. Her mother called her 'a liar' and 'a dirty b***h' who was 'ruining' her brother's reputation, Catherine says. Richard Brennan who was sentenced to eight and a half years at the Criminal Courts of Justice last Monday for the rape of his sisters. Photograph: Collins Courts Her older sisters, Paula and Yvonne – now Yvonne Crist – then in their 20s, immediately believed her. They too were sexually abused by Richard and by their oldest sibling, Bernard, but they did not disclose that abuse until years later because of what Fay calls a 'massive fear'. 'We knew our mother would not believe us, she doted on Richard, especially when he wanted to be a priest,' Yvonne says. 'We went to Mass, the fear of God was always put in us.' It was a typically big Irish family of the time, with seven children and 17 years between the oldest and youngest children: Bernard, who was born in 1957; Yvonne (born 1959), Richard (1961), Paula (1964), Eamonn (1965), Catherine (1971) and Sinéad (1974). Last month Bernard Brennan, now 67, was jailed for 4½ years years after admitting 11 counts of indecent assault of Paula and Yvonne between 1972 and 1975 when all three were minors. His abuse began when he was 13, Yvonne was 12 and Paula was six or seven. [ Three sisters sexually abused by brother 'deeply disappointed' over 'leniency' of eight-year prison term Opens in new window ] On Monday, Richard Brennan, aged 64, was jailed for 8½ years for 24 offences against his sisters Paula, Catherine and Yvonne in the 1970s and 1980s when he was aged between 16 and 24. His abuse of Catherine began on her ninth birthday and continued, escalating to rape, until she was about 13. Catherine Wrightstone - née Brennan - aged nine, the year her older brother Richard started abusing her. His offences against Paula included rape and indecent assault, and occurred when she was between 14 or 15 and 17 years old. He admitted one count of indecent assault on Yvonne when he was 18 and she was 20. The abuse occurred against a difficult family background. Their father Richard Joseph Brennan, built up a successful public hygiene disposal business, but was an alcoholic and sometimes violent to his wife and children. His wife Máire Brennan struggled with serious mental illness and could be both verbally and physically abusive to her children. She spent long periods in mental health units, leading to some of the children being in care for a time. In the wake of the sentences of their two brothers, the three Brennan sisters – Yvonne, Paula and Catherine – talked to The Irish Times about life within the Dublin family home, how the abuse occurred and how the atmosphere in the home offered no protection for the sisters from their abusive brothers. 'It was an atmosphere of great fear, massive fear, across all of us,' Paula says. 'It was always about appeasing them [parents], keeping the peace, as if we were the adults.' Sisters Paula Fay and Catherine Wrightstone, whose brother Richard Brennan (64), previously of Rathfarnham in south Dublin, but who had been living in the United States, pleaded guilty at the Central Criminal Court to 24 counts against his three sisters. Photograph: Collins Courts The girls were expected to do a lot of housework and Paula looked after her younger sisters, leading to her poor school attendance record. The Brennan family lived fairly comfortably. Encouraged by their parents, several of the children were accomplished singers and Yvonne went on to sing professionally in Ireland and the US. Paula was 'very frightened' of Bernard whom she regarded as an adult. 'He was given so much leeway around being an authoritarian in the house. He would twist a damp tea towel like a piece of rope and whack you if you didn't do what you were told,' she says. She was about six or seven when Bernard, aged about 13 or 14, began sexually abusing her. 'The biggest impact for me was on my education, I was afraid to speak; it became that I could not voice anything,' Paula says. The abuse often happened late at night when Bernard got into her bed or lifted her out of it and abused her in the room he shared with his younger brothers. His abuse of Yvonne began when she was 12 and followed a similar pattern. She believes she was 'groomed', including exposure to a pornographic video, and described Richard watching 'like a voyeur' while Bernard was abusing her. The female members of the Brennan family, back row left to right: Máire (mother), Yvonne and Paula. Front row left to right: Catherine and Sinéad Paula was 'overjoyed' when Bernard married young and left the family home but Richard's 'relentless' abuse of her continued until she was about 17. Catherine decided to tell her best friend Michelle Goggins about the abuse at the hands of Richard after a sex education class in 1984. Goggins encouraged her to report it, saying adults would stop it, and accompanied her to the home of a nurse linked with her school. That evening, the head nun at her school rang her father to inform him of her disclosure and Catherine recalled her parents 'screaming and roaring'. The next day, her mother 'called me every name'. 'She told me I was lying, these things happen in families,' says Catherine. Her parents took no action but family therapy meetings, facilitated by St John of God's, were organised later in 1984 following a referral by Dublin's Meath hospital when it could not diagnose a source of Catherine's lower limb disorder. The meeting notes recorded how her father dismissed Richard's abuse of her as 'just sexual curiosity'. [ Brothers' abuse of sisters was hidden in Dublin family for years Opens in new window ] Their mother ultimately walked out of a meeting, hauling Catherine with her; the rest of the family followed. Her parents discontinued the meetings. The Brennan girls with their parents: Richard (father), Catherine, Máire (mother), Sinéad, Yvonne and Paula Her younger sister Catherine was treated very badly at home afterwards, Paula says. 'I think I took the attitude: 'Oh my God, I don't want to be treated like that.' I really wish I had the courage she had to speak out, but I did not,' says Paula. Yvonne felt 'really sad for Catherine' and said she has a sense of guilt about not speaking up herself but feared 'we would be beaten to within an inch of our lives'. There were some grounds for that. When a 'kind' teacher previously asked her how she got lash marks on her back, arms and legs, she 'stayed very quiet' and did not reveal her mother lashed her with a stick. The teacher gave her a hug but the school took no action. Catherine, now a licensed clinical social worker, said their father had a history of 'overreacting to situations' and she has vivid memories of him inflicting two 'horrendous' beatings on her with his fists, the first when she was just six years of age. 'There was such fear of stepping out of line,' says Catherine. Paula told Catherine in the 1990s she too was abused by Richard but was unable to tell her parents. Yvonne told her sisters of being abused about 2012, when Catherine wrote to the organisers of a youth group in Georgia for whom Richard was working, expressing safeguarding concerns. All three sisters reported their brothers' abuse to the Garda in 2019. Richard, having been ordained a priest in 1989, had moved to the US but left the priesthood in 1992 after meeting his wife Bridget. Richard Brennan on the altar at the Pro Cathedral in Dublin when he was a priest. Photograph: Nick Bradshaw Other family members also emigrated to the US, including the parents. The children's father, who had stopped drinking after receiving treatment in Ireland, ran a successful pawnbroking business there. After their parents learned in 2012 that Richard's abuse extended beyond her, her father 'cried on the phone to me, apologising profusely for his inaction' over her 1984 disclosure, Catherine says. As a result, she felt able to care for him up to his death just a year later. Her mother's response was different. After Richard resigned his role with the youth group in Georgia and moved to Montana, claiming Catherine was 'yet again' trying to destroy his life, her mother did not speak to her for months, she says. Later, while her mother would not discuss not believing her in 1984, she was 'gentler and kinder' and 'behaved in a way that suggested she was sorry'. Both parents were wonderful grandparents, she added. It was a 'hard pill to swallow' when, two days before her death in 2014, her mother called Richard and told him: 'Your sisters forgive you.' The Brennan children: Richard, Paula, Yvonne, Bernard and Eamonn. Sisters Paula Fay, Yvonne Crist and Catherine Wrightstone Catherine avoided her brother when he came to the house because their mother wanted to see him before she died. Paula felt able to forgive her father before he died but said she struggles with repressed feelings of anger towards her mother over her reaction to the disclosures of abuse. 'It was about reputation; it was never about us,' she says. A year after their mother's death, the sisters' beloved younger brother Eamonn died by suicide and their sister Sinéad, who suffered health issues over many years, died in 2021. All three are unhappy with the eight-year sentence imposed on Richard and want the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) to bring an 'undue leniency' appeal. 'The sentence is an insult – it sends the wrong message to survivors and especially to offenders,' says Catherine. 'It amounts to saying it doesn't matter how many times, or how many people, you rape. It's not good enough. Women's lives matter.'
New York Times
08-07-2025
- Entertainment
- New York Times
A Tale of Family, Wealth and Sex, With a Bombshell Reckoning
THESE SUMMER STORMS, by Sarah MacLean In her memoir, 'Small Fry,' Lisa Brennan-Jobs writes about one of her earliest meetings with her father, the Apple founder Steve Jobs. She was 3. 'I'm your father,' he told her. 'I'm one of the most important people you will ever know.' The aftershocks of fathers — particularly ones as seismic as Jobs — rumble through Sarah MacLean's new novel: a gripping inheritance drama, wrapped around a swoony summer romance, that offers a nuanced portrait of a family grappling with secrets, privilege and grief. MacLean has spent the last 15 years honing her skills as a best-selling author of historical romance. Many of her trademarks are on display here: a determined, bighearted heroine; a tall, gruff and handsome love interest; the perfectly calibrated doses of laugh-out-loud banter and piping-hot intimacy that build to a deliciously satisfying finish. 'These Summer Storms' is her first contemporary novel. And what a joy it is to see how, as she shucks off the corsets and cravats, she uses her new breathing room to full advantage. The upper-crust New England world of this book is as well imagined as any of her Regency romances, and she fills it with even more complex characters, plot twists and intrigue — weaving it together with propulsive finesse. It's like discovering the lead guitarist of your favorite band is also a concert pianist. We meet our heroine, Alice, on the day her father, Franklin Storm — a daredevil tech billionaire — dies in a gliding accident. Alice has been estranged from her family for five years, but she is heading (defiantly via Amtrak, not the family helicopter) to their private island off the coast of Rhode Island to mourn. Want all of The Times? Subscribe.
Yahoo
29-06-2025
- General
- Yahoo
People Are Sharing The "Juiciest" Secrets They Found Out About Someone After They Passed Away, And My Eyes Are Wide In Shock
Secrets get taken to the grave all the time, but that doesn't stop some from unraveling. Recently, Redditor u/stealthypotatox asked those in the Reddit community to share the juicy secrets they learned about someone after they passed away, and they're prettyyyy wild: 1."My grandmother divorced my grandfather for serial adultery in the '70s. I found out much, much later that she immediately went on to date three of the husbands of the women my grandfather had cheated with." —No-County-1573 2."After her death, I learned that my grandmother, who appeared to be a staunch Christian her entire life, practiced some type of Satanism with her ex-husband for years." —medium-mild 3."My great-great-grandpa was a Basque farmer who emigrated to Cuba and became REALLY rich. He spent all his years sending letters from Cuba to Spain, trying to maintain his relationship with a sister he was really fond of. He even spent a lot of money each year to visit his homeland and see her. Well, some years ago, my family found my great-great-grandpa's genealogical tree online, and there was NO SISTER. Hm, I wonder if she was actually a lover? It's the most logical theory, but we'll never know!" —GrassAffectionate765 4."My dad wasn't my father. I found out from my sister on my mom's deathbed when I was 62. Good times." —LoudView650 5."My grandfather was tried for murdering the woman he was cheating on with when my dad was a kid. I didn't learn about it until after my dad and grandma died." —Imaginary-Purpose-20 6."My grandpa told us he was giving up his license, and we were all shocked and thought it was so mature of him. After he died, we found out that he'd totaled his car and his license was revoked." —Eat_it_Stanley 7."My great-grandpa abandoned a child after divorcing his first wife. We knew about his first marriage, but no one knew about the child. His son — my grandpa — had no idea he had a half-sibling until the end of his old life, when he found the sibling's grave. My grandpa had some serious problems with his dad, which he had moved on from. But discovering that reopened many of those issues. He was heartbroken and LIVID that he'd missed the opportunity to know his sibling." —Panama_Scoot 8."My great aunt and uncle ran a porn business in the '70s." —PickleJuiceMartini 9."My grandfather was part of the mafia. He robbed banks and owned and ran a couple of auto repair shops, and there were many 'uncles' in the family who weren't actually related to us. The pieces came together when the FBI showed up at his funeral." —PurpleNurple555 10."My grandma and granddad had a baby before they got married, and gave it to another family member to look after. Immediately after they gave it away, they got married and had five more children, the oldest being only a year younger than the one they gave away. They never took back their first child. We didn't find out my mom had an older sister until 10 years after my grandparents died, and my mom was well in her 50s!" —LepLepLepLepLep 11."I found out that the night my brother was murdered, he wasn't just using meth, but he was making and distributing it, too. And, no, that's not why he was killed." —Intrepid_Pudding_915 12."My grandpa had an entire second family two towns over. They came to the funeral like it was a surprise birthday party." —jasonclarke1902 13."My great-grandfather, whom my brother is named after, is only my great-grandfather because he'd adopted his niece after his sister was murdered due to her connection to his speakeasy ring during prohibition." —Shonky_Honker 14."We were cleaning out a relative's house and found his gay S&M porn photos from the '80s, along with his S&M kit, which was neatly packed in a briefcase." —MrsWeasley9 15."For context, my dad's side of the family is very Christian. I found out that my 'grandpa' was actually a gay man who didn't die of pneumonia like my family had originally told me. He had AIDS, and my grandmother had been fooling around with a married man who was my actual grandpa. His wife killed him." —ThrowRAclowniefisk "My mom died at 42. After she passed, these letters came out from her to this guy, saying that my younger sister was his child. The guy was the best friend of her best friend's son, meaning she'd been 30, and he'd been 19. There was an affair going on, and it was probably the real reason for my parents' divorce. My sister met the man, and he ended up being a piece of shit. Years later, ancestry revealed that my sister had relatives in common with our father, so all of the drama ended up being for nothing." —ceramia BRB, I'm going to pick my jaw up from the floor. What was a juicy secret you found out about someone only after they passed away? Let us know in the comments, or you can anonymously share your story using the form below! Note: Some submissions have been edited for length and/or clarity.
