“Inspiring, tragic, and at times heart-rendingly funny.” –People Unsentimental, unexpectedly funny, and incredibly honest, Tragedy Plus Time is a love letter to every family that has ever felt messy, complicated, or (even momentarily) magnificent. Meet the Magnificent Cayton-Hollands, a trio of brilliant, acerbic teenagers from Denver, Colorado, who were going to change the world. Anna, Adam, … who were going to change the world. Anna, Adam, and Lydia were taught by their father, a civil rights lawyer, and mother, an investigative journalist, to recognize injustice and have their hearts open to the universe–the good, the bad, the heartbreaking (and, inadvertently, the anxiety-inducing and the obsessive-compulsive disorder-fueling).
Adam chose to meet life’s tough breaks and cruel realities with stand-up comedy; his older sister, Anna, chose law; while their youngest sister, Lydia, struggled to find her place in the world. Beautiful and whip-smart, Lydia was witty, extremely sensitive, fiercely stubborn, and always somewhat haunted. She and Adam bonded over comedy from a young age, running skits in their basement and obsessing over episodes of The Simpsons.
When Adam sunk into a deep depression in college, it was Lydia who was able to reach him and pull him out. But years later as Adam’s career takes off, Lydia’s own depression overtakes her, and, though he tries, Adam can’t return the favor. When she takes her own life, the family is devastated, and Adam throws himself into his stand-up, drinking, and rage. He struggles with disturbing memories of Lydia’s death and turns to EMDR therapy to treat his post-traumatic stress disorder when he realizes there’s a difference between losing and losing it.
Adam Cayton-Holland is a tremendously talented writer and comedian, uniquely poised to take readers to the edges of comedy and tragedy, brilliance and madness. Tragedy Plus Time is a revelatory, darkly funny, and poignant tribute to a lost sibling that will have you reaching for the phone to call your brother or sister by the last page.
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Tragedy Plus Time absolutely gutted me — then it filled me with hope. I hate that Adam has this story to tell, but he tells it so beautifully.
This is the second amazing memoir that I have read in the last few months and is one of the top books I have read this year.
The blurb for this book is so extensive that I don’t want to go through many of the elements of the book that are already available for you to read. What I loved about this book was the easy flow from past to present at times, as Adam talked about his early years with Lydia. For a stand up comedian he is one heck of a writer!
I will suggest what others have and that is to watch some of Adam’s stand up comedy on You Tube or elsewhere, I really enjoyed it and it gave me an idea of how strong of a person he is to be able to pursue his career amid so much family hurt and turmoil. I haven’t as yet watched “Those Who Can’t, the comedy series that he and two friends wrote and starred in but I intend to search it out.
Lydia was a very gifted but troubled young woman. Early on she kept her depression a secret but she finally had a break down and confessed to her father that she hadn’t been able to sleep in months, she couldn’t turn her brain off, that it howled at her. Adam relates “I texted Lydia that I loved her and to call me when she woke up. . . .I couldn’t believe that I didn’t know any of this. Why hadn’t Lydia told me? Why hadn’t I noticed? But she kept it so hidden” The family had hopes that with therapy she would get better, but in the end it wasn’t enough.
Adam himself suffered from severe depression in college and it was Lydia who brought him through it. There were other family members who had been severely depressed and suicidal, his dad’s sister, Barbara, was apparently manic depressive but also brilliant. “Several of her paintings hung in my parents’ house” “She had been a gifted piano player, just like Lydia’.
This book is not bleak or without humor. There were sections when Adam talked about the bits that he and Lydia acted out together when I was laughing. Other times when he talked about his comedy routines, they were incredibly funny, witty and unique.
One thing that stayed with me was the fact that Adam and his mother felt that Lydia was communicating with them at times. First it was the wife of a friend, Maggie, who had a weird gift which she called “energy work” and told Adam how much Lydia was “talking to her” with messages that she wanted her to convey to Adam. Later there were quite a few instances of viewing a red tailed hawk which seemed to be appearing often to Adam and his mother. One encounter which Adam related took place in a parking lot and the hawk “stretched both it wings wide and held them there, like the iconic Aztec eagle. It didn’t flap them, it didn’t stretch them out, it just stood there . . . .as if to say BEHOLD”. I don’t believe in reincarnation but the instances that Adam related were very powerful, they seemed to help the family with their grief.
This is a great memoir and I hope it finds it’s audience, I highly recommend it!
I received an ARC of this book from the publisher through Edelweiss.