Saving Ellen

A coming-of-age memoir that follows a large, working-class Irish family as it plunges into chaos in the wake of a terminal diagnosisand the authors own hidden struggle toendurewhen her sisters disease becomes the dark star around which they all revolve. Financial privation and her father's drunken scenes formed the backdrop to Maura Caseys childhood, but her sister Ellen's years-long struggle with kidney disease consumed her whole family. Determined to see Ellen live to adulthood, her mother fought medical advice to donate a kidney at a time when organ transplants weremedical miracles.She concealed the true impact of that decision, which would affect the family for years to come. Set in Buffalo amidst the tumult of the 1960s and 70s,Saving Ellentraces the authors recovery from alcoholism and sexual assaultand tells ofher irrepressible older sister Ellen, who fought to claim her dream of becoming an athlete; her smart, feminist mother, whose World War II Army service prepared her to manage her own platoon of six children; and her adulterous, alcoholic father who, at the end, was haunted by his shortcomings and regrets. Despite the hard truths of her childhood,Saving Ellenis ultimately a story of humor at unexpected momentsas well asthe grace of reconciliation and gratitude.Saving Ellenwill appeal to those who have endured the stress of caring for a chronically ill family member, with all the fraught choices that entails. Readers who have experienced the unique insanity of living in a large alcoholic family will recognize the mix of madness and humor that forms the foundation of daily life. Caseys story has parallels to Monica Wood'sWhen We Were the Kennedys, which details the struggle her family began when her father died of a heart attack, and Jeannette Walls'The Glass Castle, with its tale of family dysfunction and siblings trying to help one another cope in a dilapidated house with an unstable father.