Casey, Maura. Saving Ellen: a Memoir. Skyhorse Publishing, Inc., 2025
Reason read: I am a member of the Early Review Program for LibraryThing. From time to time I get the chance to review interesting books. This is one of them.
On the surface, Saving Ellen is an intimate and intense dive into kidney disease. As an adolescent, Maura’s sister Ellen lost function of her kidneys. What follows in Saving Ellen is a series of medical appointments, hospital stays, prescriptions and side effects, a transplant, the hope of recovery by a large and chaotic Irish family that never gave up hope. At the heart of Saving Ellen is Casey’s relationship with life and everything good and bad that came with it. All the heartbreaks and triumphs of childhood. From coming of age and dealing with relentless bullying to watching an alcoholic parent poison his entire family with infidelity and addiction, Casey’s story is one of addiction survival, family forgiveness, grief acceptance, and ultimate love.
Set in New York’s city of Buffalo, I saw Saving Ellen as also a memoir of place. Buffalo in the late 1960s and early 1970s is like another impoverished character; struggling to live and breathe and grow up.
Confessional: I wish Casey had opened her memoir with the 5th and 6ths sentences as the very first sentences to Saving Ellen. They really pack a punch.
Author fact: even though Casey has written a few other books, I am not reading any of them.
Book trivia: Saving Ellen has a really cool cover.
Setlist: “One Fine Day”, “What a Frozen Little Hand”, Tommy Makem and the Clancy Brothers, Bach, Jean Sibelius, “We shall Overcome”, the Beatles, The Coors, the Monkees, the Mamas and the Papas, Mozart, Beethoven, Aaron Copeland’s “Appalachian Spring”, Rachmaninoff, Barry Manilow, “Swing Low, Sweet Chariot”, and “A Parting Glass”.
Confessional: If I hadn’t discovered Dermot Kennedy’s music I would not have found “A Parting Glass” when I did. It is a beautiful song.
~*LunaSea*~ 